October has never been kind to me.

My father was born in this month, and from my very first bond with a Libran, I learnt what cruelty and rejection felt like within the walls of my own home. My teenage years — already fragile — were turned into a living hell under his shadow. That wound still bleeds into the way I view this month.

October also carries news that cuts too deep. It was in October that I first heard the words my mother has cancer. It was in October that I watched the fur child I loved most slip away, after weeks of suffering from degenerative myelopathy. She left me on 28 October, and the grief still claws at me.

Even Diwali, a festival I love so much, often lands in October. Its lights and laughter bring me comfort — but they also stand as bittersweet reminders, because while the lunar cycle moves, the weight of this month never does.

It isn’t just one or two bad memories that colour this month for me. It’s a series of them. A pattern. A cycle of loss, fights, pain, and news that bruises. Only yesterday, I had a big fight with my partner, and today I realised the date — the second of October. This month has barely begun, and already it has reminded me of its shadow. Even my body joined in, with a sharp catch in my neck that makes every movement hurt.

October always feels heavy, dark, restless. It begins with promise — a dinner with a friend, a small spark of joy — but it almost always slips into something else. Something harder to hold. Something that leaves me waiting, tense, counting down until the calendar finally turns.

These are the images I’m putting out — fragments of how this month feels inside me. A collage of memory, pain, and resistance.