When I was younger, I used to win poetry contests without really knowing why. Teachers would smile, I’d get a certificate, and then — nothing. No one told me what to do with a girl who wrote too much, who felt too much. So I folded the papers, hid them in drawers, and went on. Years later, I’m still writing — this time, not for prizes, but for meaning. For connection. For beauty. For stillness. I’ve just turned 18, that big scary number, but it turns out I’m still the same girl who felt everything so deeply but never showed it. Although I do now write it, sometimes… I live in Spain. I will study law next year. But before all that, I am a girl that writes poems in the margins, that cries during films, dresses with intention, and sees stories in the folds of a skirt. Within the Bell Jar was born from that quiet place. Not out of confidence, but out of urgency, as a journal for all the girls that think far too deeply for their age, that dreamt of doing something meaningful, that would hold their tears, that were “too mature for their age”, that thought they needed to be funny or loud in order to be heard, that seeked academic validation, that wrote poetry as a way of breathing even when they barely knew how to spell their own names. The need to create something delicate but serious, thoughtful but sharp — a space that reflects how many of us exist in the world: inwardly, poetically, attentively. A space for lingering, for unhurried conversation, and for finding the extraordinary in the gentle unfolding of everyday life.