The best way to live again is through music

August 22, 2026 by kkamilah 2 Comments

For a society that is full of people self-diagnosing as autistic, nobody is obsessing over and fixating on music like they should be.

I jest. Sort of.

Last month, I thought about the tragedy of realising you’re in a memory as it is being made, and it made me think about those ineffable feelings that engulf us whenever we hear or smell something familiar.

I think music has fallen into the box of ‘things we’ve tried desperately to optimise’ – skimming through albums, popularising seven second snippets of the catchy parts and going viral with them. We hear way too much music without actually listening to it – there’s a subway take that expressed how I feel about this so well. Read more

You can’t hurt me, my tote bag is falling down my arm

February 6, 2025 by kkamilah Leave a comment

A love letter to winter.

I gaily (but quietly, I hope) skipped down the stairs at 5:30am this morning. I put on my trainers, I filled up my water bottle. I fumbled around for my house key which, regrettably, is still only attached to one tiny keyring (Lego Voldemort) and slips away from my fingers much too easily, especially when I am wearing a glove.

My eyes flicked mechanically over to the CCTV screen (as it does prior to any time I leave the house, in case there’s a murderer waiting for me) and I immediately did a double take: I could only see a spectral wooosh of blurred white.

I walked back over to the window and peeled aside the netting to find that the street was covered in a thick blanket of fog. Nice, I thought. I checked myself – surely I should have recoiled? Surely I should be grimacing and clutching my chest and saying ‘what is this? I should be asleep. I can’t do it.’? But I wasn’t. There was no plea to return to the warm sanctity of my bed. There was simply alertness in my brain and elation in my heart: I was genuinely happy to be leaving the house. Whilst I have never been one to begrudge the dawn (I’ve always been an early bird, even when it’s dark), I sensed a change from the difficult mornings I had a few weeks ago as my body adjusted. I realised, in the gradual arrival of the end of the year, I had been factory reset to my default setting.

Clocks Go Forward

March 28, 2021 by kkamilah Leave a comment

We all felt how violently that hour lurched forward, right? We all heard the big ‘fuck you and fuck your sleep’ in the sixty seconds between 00:59 and 02:00, right?

Daylight Savings, the horrible spoon of thick medicine we all needed, the forceful push into British Summertime as we had an hour thieved from us. The quintessential sign that summer is just around the corner, regardless of the fact that it’s horrible and grey outside, that we were plagued with torrential rain just the other day.

Today I woke up to the sun shining through my window, ate way too much brunch way too late, and sank into the sofa for an incredibly tense, nail-biting race. The first race of the 2021 Formula 1 season: the Bahrain GP. I saw Nikita Mazepin spin out on his first ever F1 lap, I watched Verstappen relentlessly fight like the charging bull he is, failing to snap first place back from the king himself, all whilst being gifted with little fiery battles between some of my favourite drivers. It was a great end to a horrible week, taking it from an almost-2 to a strong 9. There is a special place in my heart for Formula 1; I’ve always known I love the sport in the decade-plus that I’ve followed it, but I really sat there, after the first race of the season, and thought about how it feels like a void has been filled. Is that sad? It’s quite sad, isn’t it?

No, it isn’t.

The path to healing.

January 24, 2021 by kkamilah Leave a comment

Some would say a broken heart fuels creativity; that’s why we write, paint and make music.

The pain and the hurt that translates into art feels good because we love ripping it out of us and pouring it onto a page. Sometimes the feeling transcends words, so we put it into metaphors and abstract oil paintings, and people lap it up because they love the feeling it gives them. Sometimes the art touches them in a way they can’t explain, simply because of that incomprehensibility.

They love to read about it, to watch it, to hear it. Driving home as the rain hits your window, pretending you’re in a music video whilst you listen to songs about cheaters and broken homes, songs about violence; it’s cathartic. Marvin’s Room makes your tears feel hotter, but you listen to it on repeat and God knows why.

I have a hunch.

Misery loves company, and nobody wants to know they’re the only one suffering. Maybe they want to know their feelings are valid and shared. Maybe they desperately want to see how much worse it could be. Maybe they like the idea of other people suffering because the feeling of bitterness is perversely satisfying. We like pain and we like to know that we aren’t the only ones in it. We all exist somewhere on this spectrum of sadomasochism.

Ridiculous things I've heard this Ramadan

May 18, 2019 by Leave a comment

Except this time, they’re from Muslims.

We’re halfway through Ramadan and I can’t tell whether it’s going really fast or really slow. It’s harder, I cannot lie. I am but a shell of myself, a zombie going into work with shit skin and minimal words. I see everything 3 seconds after it actually happens.

I think I wrote something last year-ish about questions I’ve heard during Ramadan in general. I’ve grown up since then. I’m older, wiser, angrier. Very impatient. I have no time for ignorance and stupid people, and the more time I spend on twitter, watching the influx of 17-21 year olds spew their bullshit, I’m seeing more ridiculous opinions and lack of education. Lack of self-awareness. Lack of consideration. Kids these days really look for any reason to be offended – it’s like they enjoy the idea of being oppressed, they get a kick out of being controversial for no reason. I feel like an old angry lady waving her stick around at the children outside for being too loud. But in my old age and wisdom, I’ve also learnt to be much more tolerant. I know, it sounds so ironic given my impatience. But I’m more forgiving, less judgemental; I adopt more of a ‘let people be’ stance. So let people be. Except people who stay stupid things.
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Everything she do is for the media

April 6, 2019 by Leave a comment

Unpopular opinion: personality matters more than looks

Unpopular opinion: murder is bad

Unpopular opinion: water is wet

Sorry, just highlighting all the unpopular opinions I’ve seen just to emphasise that what I’m about to bitch about is… apparently an actual unpopular opinion.

Contrary to the beliefs of countless people I’ve had the misfortune of reading about, what you show online is, in fact, a reflection of you.

Of course it fucking is. What you write online, what you post online, what you do online is all you. Of your self, of your behaviour, of your way of thinking, or, if you’re faking it, of your mental age. Particularly in an era where the internet has such a central role in our lives; we are literally the age of the internet… we are the age of meme. We are more ourselves online than we are in real life. We spend so much time on our computers and phones that we’ve been cultivating our online persona, consequently allowing the personality within our real, material, flesh prisons to remain stagnant. No wonder we all have anxiety now and can only communicate in (obsolete) vine references.
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