A poem on remaining trapped inside a cage made only for suffering.

throw me down and put on the vice
i don’t even know if i’m cold or ice
torturarium in my bone and mind
all i can do is bleed and comply

i don’t know what swallowed me
everyone broke what was left of me
red is all that i see here
dripping off the walls, blinding my eyes
trapped when i’m submissive
and i thought i could do it
but i’ve been bleeding out here
so i’ll say it

take me away
drag me and tear all the breath away
i do not care
leave me with skin stripped to bone now

will you let go now
will i let go now
i just want to leave this torturarium

can i let go now
can i lay this pain down
i just want to leave this torturarium
oh

push me down, drain me out
choking on ash as the dark eats out
i want to claim what was never mine
spit out rust as my ribs open up
wound after wound gouged out
i stop screaming now

leave me to die
i don’t know if i want this knife and why
shattered glass cage
force me to die in this heavenly hell

i think i want to stay now
but i never wanted to fall down
i just want to leave this torturarium

i need to get out now
death is tracking me down
i just want to leave this torturarium
oh

leave me in this burning room
no place for light in this iron doom
torturarium breaking me through and through
this time i can’t bleed alone

smiling as i begin to fray
while the sickness eats all my light away
i don’t know if i seek release
drowning inside of this hollow cage

i dont want to stay now
but i don’t want to leave now
i think i’ll just rot in this torturarium

been here for years now
i’ve found home in wounds now
i can’t breathe without this torturarium
oh

drinking the darkness i cannot hide

clasping my hands tight as the cold takes hold

worshipping horrors that can’t be told

begging the devil to take me away…

it’s a song too.

vice is a heavy metal clamp to hold something in place with pressure as well as a dark habit, sin or toxic fixation, which works here in the addiction to pain and confinement.. see what i did there? ;)

what i’m listening to: can’t you see me? by tomorrow x together (i stan; my favourite band (with my celebrity love a part of it))

anyways, if you’ve read till here, comment down a hearts suit and your thoughts on my piece!

sita | catching fallen stars just to turn them into stories.

/@sitamahalakshmi on medium.

Torturarium was originally published in No Time on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

“What’s your body count?”

Ammm, body what? You mean body weight? Help, I am lost.

That’s the first time I’d ever heard that question. I saw it in someone’s TikTok video —a conversation between a girl and a guy; he asked her about her body count.

The girl was shocked, and when she told him, “I’m a virgin. I wait till marriage.” The guy didn’t seem to believe her. He insisted and said, “No, you’re lying. No one who’s never done it before.”

Upon hearing that, I immediately understood what “body counts” meant. I concluded what they were talking about.

I actually was unfamiliar with that term, especially as a non-native English speaker. But even in my own language, Indonesian, I don’t think we casually ask people about their sexual history, as if we’re asking them what they had for breakfast.

That’s why, when I heard the guy ask the question and didn’t believe her, I was like, what’s wrong with this guy? I mean, you barely know her, but you ask her personal stuff. Why are you so interested in knowing about her private life?

And more importantly, why did he feel the need to ask something that had absolutely nothing to do with him? Just who do you think he is?

For a second, I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

Because let’s imagine the girl's responses had gone differently. What if she’d answered, “I’ve slept with a couple of guys”? Or what if she’d said, “I’d done it with all the boys I date”?

What would his reaction have been?

Would he have praised her for sleeping with many guys? Or would he have looked at her differently? Would he have labeled her like, “cheap,” “damaged,” or “wild”? Would he have judged her character or worth solely because of the number of sexual partners she’d slept with?

I don’t understand why people make such a big deal out of this. Especially for men, I don’t think you have the right to ask a woman that question.

Being a virgin is not a crime. And losing your virginity doesn’t make you less valuable as a person.

Yet somehow, we live in a world where both things can become the reasons for people to judge you, especially for women.

If you are a virgin, people might talk about it as a bad thing, as if there’s something wrong with you for not having sex. They might assume you’re weird, inexperienced, old-fashioned, or that no one wants to sleep with you. They might say you missed something in your prime age that everyone has already done.

But if you’ve had such an experience, the judgment suddenly shifts in the opposite direction. People may call you names, question your value, or act like they know every single detail of your life. They might define you based on that one private part.

A woman's worth isn’t in her virginity.

A woman doesn’t become more valuable because she’s a virgin. And she doesn’t become less valuable because she’s not a virgin. There’s nothing that increases or decreases a woman’s value based on their sexual history.

A woman’s body belongs to her. No man has the right to decide how a woman should treat her own body. Whatever a woman chooses to do with her body is no one’s business but her own. Whether she wants to wait until marriage, has done it before marriage, or won’t do it at all, that’s her decision to make. Their body, their choice.

Every woman's decision about her body is valid.

I think it is time we stop attaching a woman’s worth to something so deeply personal. A woman’s body is not a measure of her worth, and her sexual experience is not an invitation for others to judge her.

There are so many better ways to get to know someone, rather than asking meaningless questions like, “What’s your body count?” As if the answer could explain who they are and everything you need to know about them.

At the end of the day, I think being a virgin doesn’t make someone better than anyone else. Likewise, not being a virgin doesn’t make someone less respectable, either.

So, if you are a virgin, there’s nothing wrong with you. It is not a crime. And if you’re not, there’s nothing inherently wrong with you, either.

“What’s your body count?” was originally published in No Time on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

I set sail from the remains of the ruins,
No ores, or men holding them.
I stare upon the empty sky,
Alone, afraid and with no faith.

I left the path to the gods,
Praying the waves carry me far away.
Away from shores that drown
and bury the living,
Along with all that they were.

Waves thrash upon me,
Salt burns my eyes.
I close them and pray
for days and nights.

At their command, I was spewed onto the shore.
The sands here recognise me.
This is the place I belong.
This is home!

The Calling was originally published in No Time on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Somewhere in India, inside a small house, I was wondering how I could make my stories more compelling. I am actually quite bad at storytelling. But in 2026, it is a necessity more than an option, especially for someone like me who wants to document his life in a cinematic way.

I don’t have a mentor to guide me or a paid course. I just have a Google account, which gives me access to numerous premium courses available on YouTube.

But there is a problem.

YouTube is like a jungle of diamonds, and someone without direction is likely to get lost there. So what should I do now? How will I master storytelling?

Well, there is something that can actually help me. At least it is better than trying to figure out everything by myself. Guess what?

The great AI chatbots. Okay, I know they aren’t perfect, but they can offer a structured path for learning. They have access to millions of research papers that cover the most effective learning methods.

But there is a problem too.

Which chatbot should I use? Which one can give me the best guidance? Which one understands me best?

I have tried so many chatbots. Some gave me a lot of useless information, some overcomplicated things with their reasoning, and others couldn’t even properly understand what I actually wanted.

So, it is confirmed for me that there is no perfect AI tool available right now. I have to choose among these imperfect ones.

Can you guess who is it?

It’s ChatGPT. I know Claude is better at writing and creating structured courses, but ChatGPT feels more like a human companion. You can talk to any chatbot, but only ChatGPT makes you feel like you are talking to a real friend. So, I am currently using ChatGPT to guide my learning in a more relatable way.

What about you? What do you use the most?

Which One Would You Choose? was originally published in No Time on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.