Notes from Ajmal Roshan and the margins of Amare Mortem.https://amaremortem.comenThu, 20 Aug 2026 10:39:13 GMTMaybe the most intimate question isn’t “Do you love me?” It’s “What parts of me are allowed to exist around you?”https://substack.com/@ajismynickname/note/c-315772445substack-note-315772445Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 GMTYou can love someone and still realize the relationship only works when one of you is disappearing.https://substack.com/@ajismynickname/note/c-315772227substack-note-315772227Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 GMTSometimes you wish you were someone else because you have spent so much time evaluating yourself that you forgot to experience yourself.https://substack.com/@ajismynickname/note/c-315775218substack-note-315775218Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 GMTYou can be grateful for your life and still admit it no longer fits. Gratitude doesn’t require you to keep wearing something you have outgrown.https://substack.com/@ajismynickname/note/c-315774513substack-note-315774513Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 GMTThe Writer’s Table is not always easy to run. Every week, I spend hours organizing, reading, commenting on, and ranking around 30 submissions. 📚 But the best part has never been the ranking. It’s seeing so many of you in each other’s comments, reading, encouraging, sharing, and genuinely supporting one another. That is exactly how we grow on this platform as writers. 🤍 So this morning, I just want to appreciate everyone who keeps pulling up a chair and making this feel like a real community. ✨ And if you know me for my Notes or stories but have never joined The Writer’s Table, consider this your invitation. Tap the link and share your best piece. Worst case? You get a like, a thoughtful comment, and a new reader. 😌 Pull up a chair. 🪑https://substack.com/@ajismynickname/note/c-317151675substack-note-317151675Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 GMTThe Writer’s Table - Week 9 🥇 #1 goes to @Aye for The Vulnerability Permit. Aye explores something I had never quite thought about this way: how we often wait until pain is understood and presentable before letting anyone else see it. The idea of “pre-paying” for vulnerability, and the difference between giving someone a finished story to admire versus an unfinished one they can actually stand beside, made this piece unforgettable.✨ This was the strongest submission of Week 9 and one I genuinely think more people should read. 😊 Please visit Aye’s profile to read and support the full piece. We want our winners to feel the full love of the Water Tribe. 🤍🙏https://substack.com/@ajismynickname/note/c-317143743substack-note-317143743Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 GMTThe Writer’s Table - Week 9 🥈🥉 #2 goes to @Haneen Abbas for if she could see through my eyes This was such a sweet and emotionally intelligent piece. Haneen begins with the fear of someday having a daughter and slowly reveals that the fear is not about loving her too little, but about accidentally teaching her to measure herself the same way she once did. The imagined daughter becomes a way of examining achievement, worth, inheritance, and what it means to finally experience love without having to earn it. “Perhaps her daughter can inherit her eyes without inheriting the way she learned to look at herself.” 🫳🏻🎤 #3 goes to @Amorette 𐙚⋆.˚ for Your sex dream is a twirling little girl with a big ass and hello kitty shorts This was fearless, unsettling, and incredibly distinct. Amorette takes the colour pink and slowly transforms it from something soft and innocent into something increasingly disturbing, using it to confront the way youth, femininity, and sexuality are packaged together. The repetition, direct address, and almost taunting voice make the reader increasingly uncomfortable as the piece goes on, which is exactly what gives it its power. It is confrontational writing with a voice that feels completely its own. 🌷🌸 Please visit their profiles to read and support each writer. 🫂🙌https://substack.com/@ajismynickname/note/c-317134945substack-note-317134945Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 GMTIf your apology changed your vocabulary but not your behaviour, you learned the script, not the lesson.https://substack.com/@ajismynickname/note/c-315775604substack-note-315775604Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 GMTBe careful how often you say, “That’s just who I am.” Identity loves turning yesterday’s evidence into tomorrow’s sentence.https://substack.com/@ajismynickname/note/c-315774723substack-note-315774723Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 GMTGrowing up can be weird because eventually you become both the child asking for permission and the adult who has to realize nobody is coming to grant it.https://substack.com/@ajismynickname/note/c-315775342substack-note-315775342Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 GMTBeing known is not someone remembering your favourite colour. It is someone noticing which version of you walked into the room.https://substack.com/@ajismynickname/note/c-315774041substack-note-315774041Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 GMTThe older I get, the less I want someone who understands me quickly. I want someone who stays curious after they think they do.https://substack.com/@ajismynickname/note/c-315773820substack-note-315773820Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 GMTThe strongest communities are not built by people trying to impress each other. They are built by people trying to make sure nobody feels invisible.https://substack.com/@ajismynickname/note/c-315583535substack-note-315583535Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 GMTDear Substack, Please put this note in front of two kinds of writers: The ones who are here every day. Reading, writing, supporting others, and showing up even when nobody seems to notice. And the ones who obsess over every sentence. Meticulous, wildly creative writers who care deeply about making their work feel like nobody else’s. If you’re one of them, say hello here or message me directly. I’d genuinely love to meet you. Substack, make sure they see this.https://substack.com/@ajismynickname/note/c-314490681substack-note-314490681Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 GMTPeople say life is a rollercoaster because of the highs and lows. But that’s not the whole story. Life is a rollercoaster because at the scariest times you forget there’a still a track holding you.https://substack.com/@ajismynickname/note/c-314254213substack-note-314254213Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 GMTBeing adaptable does not mean I’m not reading the room. It means I’m kind enough not to narrate everything I notice.https://substack.com/@ajismynickname/note/c-313925500substack-note-313925500Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 GMTI never understood support until I lifted one finger and the others made room for it to rise.https://substack.com/@ajismynickname/note/c-313922567substack-note-313922567Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 GMTIn case you missed it! 🙌https://substack.com/@ajismynickname/note/c-313736852substack-note-313736852Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 GMTI think flirting is one of best expressions of love.https://substack.com/@ajismynickname/note/c-313169245substack-note-313169245Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 GMTLet’s hold hands and walk through life. If we ever lose each other, reach back out. No questions asked. I think that’s unconditional love: not never separating, but never making someone prove they deserve the way back. Maybe that’s why it scares us. We all want to be loved without conditions while secretly keeping a few for everyone else.https://substack.com/@ajismynickname/note/c-313088899substack-note-313088899Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 GMTI don’t think we lost our instinct to care for each other. Somewhere along the way, we just learned to ask what kindness would cost us before asking what someone needed.https://substack.com/@ajismynickname/note/c-313086131substack-note-313086131Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 GMTCongratulations. Nothing is wrong, nothing is falling apart, and you’re bored out of your mind. My new short story is about how we finally got our lives together and still had no idea what to do with them.https://substack.com/@ajismynickname/note/c-312390435substack-note-312390435Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 GMTAm I a translator of my own mind, or have I been translating you inside it?https://substack.com/@ajismynickname/note/c-311748193substack-note-311748193Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 GMTI feel like I love sleep, but I treat it terribly. I think I need to start paying attention to all the things I claim to love while constantly disrespecting them.https://substack.com/@ajismynickname/note/c-311812439substack-note-311812439Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 GMTI want to reassure you of my love, but you want to dance in the rain. So I’ll hold the umbrella and let your tears become weather. It may not be how I’d wait for summer, but sometimes reassurance doesn’t get to choose the weather for you. Just don’t let the rain become more than I can carry in two palms. Otherwise, we’ll both still be wet, and I’ll have mistaken drowning with you for loving you.https://substack.com/@ajismynickname/note/c-311674774substack-note-311674774Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 GMT