Doodles in the Margin

A short piece on small talk, saying the right thing, and answering a question that isn't really being asked. Read the full piece here. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit doodlesinthemargin.substack.com

A poem about weddings, roles, and the stories we’re handed about where we belong. Sometimes everything unfolds exactly as it should — the timing, the ceremony, the perfect execution — and you find yourself somewhere unexpected within it. This one is for the moments that shift something quietly, without asking permission. Doodles in the Margin is a podcast of original poetry and essays by Jade. New...

A poem about gin, constellations, and a city that keeps proving me wrong. Sometimes joy arrives quietly — through a speakeasy door, a flight of gin, and an astronomer pointing at the sky. This one is for the nights that remind you where you are, and who you're with. Doodles in the Margin is a podcast of original poetry and essays by Jade. New episodes every Monday & Friday. Read more at doodlesint...

For this Essay and More please find us on substack. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit doodlesinthemargin.substack.com

I said I was exhaustedand the world kept moving. No pause. No recalibration. Just the quiet implication —everybody does. Face warm. Mouth closed. Body numb. Because if everybody does,then I should be able to. Like everybody else. What I meant was —leave me alone. Let me move at the pacemy nervous system can survive. Let me build a lifewith negotiable volume. Let me existwithout racing you. Instead...

We have are gathered here today to grieve something that never arrived. Not a person laid to rest, but a longing. A quiet, persistent hunger that shaped the architecture of a life. Some children grow up steadied by softness. Others learn to steady themselves. I learned early how to read the temperature of a room before I learned how to read my own body. I learned that attention did not always mean...

I was sitting on my bed in my childhood bedroom, a shitty little Kyocera phone pressed to my ear. He was packing to go to his dad’s. I had a taekwondo tournament. We wouldn’t see each other for a few days, which felt longer than it should have. I told him I’d call when I got a chance. He said, please, do. We loved each other in burned CDs. Songs chosen carefully, in order, passed like something fr...

Before the note, my throat tightens like it’s been asked a question it already knows the “safer” answer to. My mind does a little dance — just chill, you aren’t Aretha — as if humor could pass for wisdom, as if restraint were the same as humility. I know this choreography by heart. The step back before the sound leans forward. How to disappear half a breath early. But when I stop listening — when...

An essay about the particular shame that arrives when harm is dressed as concern. On accountability that only runs one way, erasure disguised as repair, and the moment you realize there was never a standard you could meet — because the outcome was decided before you arrived. Doodles in the Margin is a podcast of original poetry and essays by Jade. New episodes every Monday. Read more at doodlesint...

It wasn’t a fight. Just fog. The kind that makes distance look intentional and turns reaching into something you’re accused of instead of seen for. I kept moving toward a familiar shape, though its stature had changed. It stood like a monument I no longer recognized—close enough to name, far enough to doubt my own hands. There was a presence in the mist, not loud, not sharp, just heavy. Claiming t...