When I barge into English on early mornings, he’s usually sitting behind his desk, busy with papers that need to be read with scrutiny. I’m not a big talker so the first thing I say is, “hey, could you read this?” And he always does.

I look for signs of approval on his face. I look for a smile or a simple nod. I just need one sign, a sign that will tell me I wrote well, or that I did a good job. I need approval; I need to regain my confidence. If people don’t remind me that I can write, I find myself in doubt. Then I begin digging and searching for some sort of compliment.

We all want to belong. Maybe you want to belong to a club or an organization. Maybe you want to belong to a sisterhood or a sports team. No matter where it is, we all want to be accepted somewhere, don’t we?

I want to be accepted by other writers. I want to be accepted by a reader who won’t be bored by what he reads.
What’s going to make him want to read the words I write? What’s going to make him care for what I feel, how I live my life, how I see things, what I hate or what I like? What’s going to make him re-read the sentence he just read a second ago?

I fear everyday that I don’t write. I fear and I want to scream and I want to close my eyes and…

I leave English class, smiling inside. But I’ll be coming back, soon…

It’s 7:20 am and in our small classroom, there are a few outspoken teens who have not yet fallen asleep. These young men and women join in the many discussions we have and use their personal experiences to interpret literature.

Among them is M, an intellectual young man with a big passion for music, money, shoes and big dreams. He never carries much with him; it’s usually just him and a set of earphones. He doesn’t always do what teachers ask of him, like the homework assignments or other tasks that to him are a waste of time. But I admire him and I think even his teachers are struck by his young, yet mature mind. I admire his intellect, his wit, his respect for family and his passions. When he speaks, you can’t help but listen to him. And if you listen to him carefully, in between his mumbling, you’ll hear his interpretive thoughts and ideas. You’ll hear and you’ll know that he is not a slacker and that he’s not just sitting at a desk for nothing. You’ll know that he does have inspiration and that he is trying to put a little extra effort to make it through high school and the tedious assignments.

The last bell rings. In his $400 sneakers, M walks to his locker, still thinking about his future and his dream music studio.

My hair smells of cigarettes from last night. I was at a club in D.C., surrounded by large men in black suits, who watched the underage kids like hawks. The man at the front door marked my hands with two big, black X’s so everybody would know I wasn’t 21. I'm still struggling to wipe off the X's.

In the midst of neon lights and the deafening music, it’s possible to let go and get lost. Sensation. Ecstasy. Not being you is too easy. Just be. Be a dancer, a drinker, a guy passing, a watcher, an observer or a lonely recluse, sitting on a couch…

There are men who watch your every move, your hips, your legs, your arms, your eyes…

There are men who come too close, crossing every boundary, leaving no room for you, trapping you, putting their arms around you…do you let them? Do you turn around and look away?

There are women who dance without defining it. There are no rules in this wild, colorful, fantastic fantasy…there are simply no rules.

I dance…and the rest is forgotten…

It’s another Sunday and it's time to wash a pile of dirty sheets. The laundry room is empty. I look outside the window and I see a girl plucking her brows by her window. I’ve done that many times. Suddenly there is a connection between us, or is it between our threads and mirrors?

I watch the washing machines and the dryers. A week ago, I would have wanted my thoughts to be cleansed out in these big machines. Not today though. Today is sunny, my thoughts are lost, and these sheets will soon dry...

Mom and I were driving down the road. We drive together often and although years apart in age, and different in too many ways, there is one thing that always connects us back together. There is one thing we share and that is how we got to where we are today. “How did I get here?!” I asked, laughing, “can you believe I’m graduating already?!”
and she said, “when you came here you were only in the sixth grade.”
“That was a difficult time…I don’t wanna remember it…” I said.

She didn’t want to remember it either. Neither of us wanted to go back to the memory of that unfamiliar, empty apartment that we had to sleep in every night. Neither of us wanted to remember the walls that we couldn’t break, the rooms that we didn’t want to unpack in.

“Is it going to happen again? Will there be more of those times?” I ask, more for myself than for her.

She said the hardest part was not knowing the language. Language is the basis for staring a life in any country.

But was it more than language? Would it have been easier if I were older?

Mom kept driving. We didn't talk about it anymore. We passed through the traffic just like we'd done six years ago.

She smokes about twice a week. Her friends tell her it’s too much, too often. But she doesn’t listen and doesn’t think she’s overdoing it.

I listen as they argue back and forth.

It’s sad. It’s just really sad. But what can you do? How can you tell someone that drugs don’t really answer anything? The thing is you can’t. After you’ve done your part of the talking, it’s up to her to decide what’s good for her. As much as you want to help change the world, change the way teens behave, change the way they deal with their depression, or anxiety, or day-to-day problems, you can’t just talk and expect to be heard. You just can’t expect that.

Her friend sits across from me and doesn't look too happy. I can see the pain in her eyes, the kind you get when you know you can’t help your friend, the kind you get when you feel like you’re losing someone precious. She’s not mad; she’s just disappointed. She is disappointed that smoking is now turning into a habit.

I’m disappointed because I can only write about it.

A suitcase stores more than just shirts, dresses and pants. A suitcase stores memories, smells, emotions. It tells stories of trips across the globe. It tells the story of a family who leaves without knowing why. Or the story of the mother and father, who run away, swim across cold waters, pass through mountains and hide from gunmen to cross the border. Or the story of a confused, young bride, who leaves her widowed mother to see things she has never seen before.

Inside this suitcase, lie secrets, untold tales and pieces of the past. We’ve carried them with us all our lives, through crowded airports and planes, through unfamiliar towns, through valleys and streets.

Mother is leaving tomorrow. Her red suitcase is already packed, ready to cross the ocean, ready to tell another story, store another memory and unveil treasures. Mother is leaving and her suitcase sits by the door…when will we stop repeating stories?

My heart feels heavy. Tears are welling up in my eyes tonight. Suddenly I’m reminded of homesickness. I’m reminded of painful good-byes and tears that never come to an end. I’m thinking of mother and how she’ll have to say good-bye to her child again.

I’m crying because I don’t want my brother to see his mother leave again. I don’t want him to cry. I don’t want him to remember how he lost her once. I don’t want him to remember the mother figure that his little eyes didn’t get to see.

I don’t know how you feel. I can never possibly know. But I know it wasn’t fair to you. I know it wasn’t just. I know you were too little, too fragile to be away from her, without her good-night kisses, without her lullabies, without her touch, without her embrace, without her loving voice. How were you supposed to understand? How were you supposed to know she still loved you even though she wasn’t there to tell you? How were you supposed to accept her again when she came back?

Don’t cry my darling. Mother loves you. Mother doesn’t want to leave. Mother loves you…

La la la…
I hum to myself.

We walk down Old Town, like we’ve done many times before. The city is in motion; cars move, couples drink wine outside of restaurants on sidewalks, singles walk to unknown destinations. No one is still, not even the sky that’s now beginning to form rain drops.

In this dark night, faces illuminate this quiet town. Their smiles and grins make me happy. A man makes music from wine glasses that are half-way filled with water. He plays a Chinese song as he swiftly moves his fingers across the edge of each glass. A girl next to me has tears in her eyes. She too thinks it’s a beautiful melody…

La la la…

The houses we pass by are mesmerizing. Or maybe it’s what we perceive them to be that’s mesmerizing. Or maybe what’s mesmerizing is the idea of owning these houses and standing on their balconies while holding a cup of coffee. Otherwise, a house is just a house…

So…La la la, that’s what I hum as I make my way through this town, as I watch little children and think I would never want to have one, as I watch parents make their way through…

These little stories are real. This city and these faces and these cars are real. The moon is real. I don’t write fiction; what I tell is real. I’m always trapped in reality whether I like it or not.

Sometimes humming la la la makes my realities endurable, even beautiful…

She slashed both of her wrists “accidentally” she says. Apparently she was a little drunk after five beers.

We are worried about her. Was this a failed attempt at suicide? Will she try it again?

There are so many days when we just want to end it, when we want to free ourselves from whatever’s trapping us inside. At times like these, no remedy seems to exist, no panacea, no pain reliever that would wipe out every bad feeling. At times like these, temporary solutions don’t come to mind.

But can we just end it? Wouldn’t that be selfish? Wouldn’t that be the easy way out?

Talk to them. Talk to them so they know they’re not alone, so they know they don’t have to suffer alone. Talk so that hopefully there won’t be a next time.

Mother isn’t here for me to tell her happy mother’s day. So I’m going to tell her that I love her, even though she already knows. I’m going to tell her she means the world to me. I’m going to tell her what she knows already.

I love you. Thank you. I’m nothing without you.

Happy Mother’s Day to all you beautiful mothers who chose the hardest job, who gave us the most amazing gifts, who whispered the sweetest things, who sang us the most beautiful songs, who gave us your warmest kisses.

Thank you maman.

To be alive, we need love, sex, food, you know, the basic needs of survival. To live, we need a beating heart. We need that heart to beat so we can walk, run, dance, think, write, imagine, speak, decide, believe, choose, operate, cure, provide, secure, love, feel…

We take our beating hearts for granted. We take all we have for granted because we don’t know any better. Because we haven’t felt what a life without a working heart means. Because we never got the cancer that the woman on TV got. Because we never had to face death.

Just think. This heart is beating, we’re breathing, we’re living, we’re moving. If this heart were to stop beating, there’d only be a corpse, a dead body, a nameless skeleton...

We are greedy. We are insatiable. We want more than a beating heart, a good leg, a strong pulse, a smart brain. We want to be loved, that is the heart we seek, the heart that can love, the heart that speaks the language of…love.

They’re selling our house in Iran. They’re selling our house, our room, our kitchen, our memories. They’re selling it. I don’t believe it; I can’t. That was my safety, my home, my comfort zone. I built memories, I hid stories, I played in those rooms, I laughed, I cried, I lived. I lived in that house.

I feel like I'm losing something big, too big to comprehend, too big to define. I'm losing a home. I feel homeless. I’m sitting in a home miles and miles away, and I feel homeless…

Why didn’t anyone tell me? Why didn’t anyone tell me I’d never see my home again?

Someone else is going to live there now. Someone else is going to make memories there. Someone else is going to sleep under that roof, the roof that protected me, that secured me, that told me I lived there, that I belonged there…

I want to go back now. I want to see it one last time before they put a price tag on it, before they hand over the keys, before they shut that door…I want to go back…

Why didn’t anyone tell me?!

A home is priceless. The memories are priceless. You can’t put a price tag on a house that kept your secrets, that kept your lies, that let you in and out, that held you when there was a storm or thunder or rain…it’s priceless…

So does this mean I have to say good-bye to home now? Goodbye Tehran? Goodbye home? What does this mean?

Sold. It is gone. It was gone. And I knew this the very first time I walked out of that door…

As a kid, I loved going on our roof. My little cousin and I used to play hopscotch with a piece of chalk. Sometimes I took my pots and pans and placed them on the edge of the walls. Then I poured water in them and pretended to make soup for my mom or imaginary guests.

That was then, when home was a brownish three-story building, a roof to watch the sky from, a window to the outside world.

Now, our apartment is being sold to a family of six. There are three college boys and a little girl. They’re going to be the first strangers of our building.

My aunt cries because strangers are moving in, because she won’t be going up our stairs, saying hello to us. My aunt cries while newcomers walk up to our apartment and unpack their belongings.

I’m not okay with this. I’m not okay with this change. I picture my house in my head and replay what I remember of it. But there are gaps, holes that need to be filled. How do you fix a delapidated image?

That home was a key, a key to the streets and valleys of Tehran, a key to eleven years of childhood.

I picture my uncle, locking the entrance door late at night when everyone is asleep. What is he thinking? How many more times will he get to put the lock on before he too leaves?

I hope that little girl won’t have to watch her family break apart like I did. I hope she feels welcomed into our little home. I hope she feels safe, safe enough to call it…home.

Nura asks me if I'm going to be one of those writes who kill themselves after they write best-sellers, like Earnest Hemingway. I laugh and say I would never have enough courage, nor would I be able to let go of life. I tell her I'd be too preoccupied thinking of what I'd miss if I did commit suicide.

When I was a freshman, my English teacher said I write like Hemingway. Now my friend wonders if I'll live like him. I reassure her that I'd never kill myself.

I'm wondering why writers go crazy or put a bullet in their heads. Is it the enormous amount of thinking that becomes too exhausting? Is it the loneliness that drives them to the edge? Or is it simply because they reach a point where they think what they write is pointless?

Maybe it is pointless, but so is life. If there was ever a point in life, it'd be happiness. Live to be happy. That's my point: I write to be happy. It's like a formula, a formula that doesn't require much thought.

So I guess my answer to her is, if writing doesn't make me happy and I find no substitute, then maybe a bullet will become an option. But for now, writing is my only option.

I’ve been thinking. I’m tired, but I can’t decide whether it’s a physical exhaustion or mental or both. But…I’ve been thinking…about death…about being gone…about being physically nonexistent.

I wonder if I want to be missed, if I want to be gone, if I want to be absent when my mother calls my name to do the laundry, to wash the dirty wishes…Do I want to be gone and not be there to answer her, to tell her I love her, to tell her having me was worth it?

I’m walking down an empty, dark street and I’m wondering about tomorrow and the day after that. I know I have too much to do, too much to live for, too much to write, too much to say, but I’m allowing my mind to think about this concept of death, this eternal absence…But why? Is it because I'm tired of waiting?

So after a lot of thinking, contemplating, wondering, questioning, I decide that I don't want to be missed. They, those who know me, will miss me. I will miss me, won't I?

It’s a quiet night and I’ve done all my talking already…

Go to sleep, the voice inside my head says, you’re tired…

M says he wants to be a child again. Children are amazing, he says. They have big imaginations with unlimited possibilities, unlimited questions that the adults never know the answers to. Children are ignorant of what M and I know. That’s why they’re happy, happy with the little things they know.

Maybe we don’t need to know all that we know. Does a four year-old want to know that people kill for power, for money, for dominance? Does she want to know that friends can turn into enemies? Does she really want to know why the sky is blue?

We like to call children innocent. We like to think they can be protected forever, that they can be unharmed, untouched, invulnerable, invincible.

How can we protect them? How can we protect ourselves…weren’t we once looked after too?

Who’s going to protect us?

As I read the opening pages of Lolita, a woman who seems to be speaking Russian, catches my attention. She doesn’t have a luminous face nor does she appear mysterious. What appeals to me are her pearls, the perfectly round white pearls around her neck.

She and an old Russian man are busy talking to each other. The man has a hunch and appears older, though is most likely not her father.

I continue reading Lolita and just as I get close to escaping reality and entering the world of Humbert Humbert, my mind sidetracks and I look up to see the two of them talking. They are discussing Russia’s politics or perhaps they’re having a more casual conversation, like one about literature and art. Maybe they’re just talking pearls.

“Who gave you those pearls?” the man is asking.
“Oh it was so long ago, but I believe they were my sister’s.”

Whether they’re really talking about the pearls is an unimportant factor, incidental, even irrelevant to the matter. The subject of interest is simply the white pearls that have a definite shape, unlike the fictitious books that can always be interpreted differently.

The things that never fail to bring us back to reality are facts, figures, solids, things we can touch, feel, smell. Even pearls around a woman’s neck have the power to destroy a fictional masterpiece.

People always say new beginnings are good. New beginnings are exciting, full of surprises, adventurous, a chance to try different things, find out more about so and so, blah blah blah…

But what if you’re tired of starting over, starting fresh, making new adjustments and getting used to what you are not used to? What if you’re scared because you don’t know if you’ll make it again, if you’ll have supporters, helpers, what if you are uncertain and unready for another jump, another big step?

We have four more days left of high school and we’re scared, at least some of us. Let me change that back to “I”. I am scared, not because I don’t trust myself, not because I think I’ll lose myself again. I’m scared because I have to get used to it. Whatever that it will be.

I got used to America, I got used to being away from home, from people I love, I got used to it all and damn it…I’m just tired of doing it all over again.

Mother says I started tearing my fingernails when my father left Iran. That’s her way of psychoanalyzing it. Maybe there is a connection, maybe not.

So I never have perfect nails. Sometimes I barely have any. Women in the family like to lecture me about it. They like to say a lady should take care of herself, manicure her nails, not leave fainted polish on them, not bite or tear them into pieces.

But I’ve gotten addicted to this nasty habit, to this addiction. It relieves my tensions, it gives me something to do, it keeps me busy.

With a mother and sister both obsessed with perfection, I’m probably the most imperfect woman in the family. I’m obsessed with writing, with getting things done, with being on time, with being there for people, with analyzing and thinking, but I’m no where close to perfect, to being flawless. The external world doesn’t have to be perfect for me, a bed doesn’t have to be made, a sink doesn’t have to be empty of dirty dishes. But my internal thoughts, my intentions, my goals have to be almost near perfection.

Perfection is boring. Being imperfect, being messy, being mismatched and perfectly flawed, that’s exciting...that’s who I am.

I’m standing alone on steps. The night is pitch black, so black that even a star can’t be seen. What is the sky trying to shield, what is it trying to hide? Doesn’t it know that I need light, that I need to see where I’m headed to?

My shadow stands tall, like the tree next to me. This tree has lived longer though, it has lived through many storms and hurricanes, it has so many leaves, branches that stretch far.

Against the pitch black sky, this green tree stands tall next to me, as if it were protecting me, letting me know I’m not alone. I have found a companion on this empty street. I have found a shield to protect me tonight.

I walk down the steps and walk toward her car…who is going to protect me now?

Children scare me. Children are incomprehensible to me. They’re too complicated for me to analyze, for me to understand, for me to learn. I don’t understand their imaginations, their questions that seldom have an answer, their curiosity, their rudeness, their misunderstanding of the world around them.

Sometimes I want to remember what kind of child I was. I want to remember if I asked the same questions, if I had imaginary friends, if I yelled or screamed for not getting the toy I wanted. But I don’t remember. I don’t remember…and I wish I could.

When I see a mother holding that small, tiny hand, I fear that one day I will make the same mistake, the mistake of motherhood. When I see a mother holding a tiny baby in her arms, I can’t imagine being that selfless, selfless enough to make sacrifices, to give up things, to give up my morning sleep, to take care of a little person that needs extra attention. I can’t imagine being selfless enough to love that child the way mothers do, to love it unconditionally. I can’t imagine being selfless enough to raise a child, who knows nothing, who has so much to learn, has so many needs. I won’t know how to answer a child’s question. I don’t know those answers. I don’t know why the sky is blue, I don’t know if there is a heaven or hell. I just don’t know.

Maybe I’m still a child. Maybe I don’t know how to be selfless yet. Maybe I still need a hand to hold mine. Maybe I’m just afraid of letting go of mother’s hand…maybe I’m still a child who doesn’t want to grow up.

The waiter brings our coffees and cream; the coffees are cold but we are not in the mood to complain. We are not in the mood to discuss pointless matters.

I take a sip, disregarding how bitter and cold it is, and reveal that I made a mistake by choosing to stay in Virginia. I admit that I would have preferred New York, but that’s hardly a revelation. I admit that I would have preferred the city and its temptations. I would have wanted New York over the empty roads here in Virginia, the roads that always come to a dead-end and leave me without options, without choices, without possibilities to explore…

But I was scared. I was not ready. I was more afraid of getting lost in the big city and being alone than a temporary dissatisfaction here in this beautiful yet stagnant town…

I push the coffee aside and stare into a night empty of stars…

But you have to pay a price for what you choose, for what you want. Everything is worth something. Your dreams cost hard work, determination, sacrifice, time. Sometimes a dollar bill is not the only cost that comes with what you want. Sometimes what you want is only worth one try, one risk, one sleepless night.

I leave the money on the table where my unfinished cup of coffee sits still. That’s the only price I’ve paid tonight…

They are wasted. They are drunk. They are addicted to cigarettes. They smoke so much that I feel like I’m smoking with them. My clothes stink; I’m a cigarette.

I’m disgusted. I’m disgusted by this atmosphere, by their fake sincerities and hellos. I’m disgusted by their attitudes, their Gucci bags and Versace sunglasses. I’m disgusted and I’m tired of bumping into people as I struggle to dance.

The speakers are so close to my ears that I’m almost deaf. A woman with fake, blond hair pushes me aside as she tries to pass through. Another woman steps on my foot with her high heel. She continues to dance with her husband while I’m in so much pain and feel like breaking her neck.

A man comes between us, wanting to accompany us because we are beautiful and are not taken. We ignore him. He leaves after a couple of minutes; it’s just me and her again.

We dance to songs that bring back memories from a past that is so far away now. We dance to songs that liberated us when the world was our small villa by the Caspian Sea. We dance to songs that we grew up with...but now that I’m dancing, I’m wearing too much eyeliner, I’m sweating, I’m being pushed and stepped on, and I’m trapped…This is a different liberation…

I can’t take it anymore…there is too much smoke. We leave and a cute Persian boy says salam (hi). It’s too late now, I think, you should have said hello when we were inside, dancing...

I’m so glad to be home now, out of these stinky clothes, away from a wasted, addicted, drunk crowd…

After three nights of partying, I can finally sit and rest. I haven’t been inspired lately and feel as though something is missing. But there was always something missing and it seldom bothered me. Like the trips we took, like the card games we played late at night, like the gatherings we had every Friday night.

My mind is in a state of peace and it doesn’t want to replay old memories, old stories from those days…

My mother misses me I think. But I don’t think of her; maybe I should.

I can’t think of what is missing, maybe if I think harder, I’ll figure it out.

I look at their innocent faces, their feigned smiles, their glaring eyes, their lost expressions. And I wonder. I wonder if in four years, they’ll know who they are. I wonder if in four years, these newcomers will have learned the tricks and games of this day-to-day game. I wonder if in four years, their smiles will be natural, automatic, as if to spell out who they are.

I flip through pages of this year’s yearbook. I look at faces and wonder what’s behind their taunting eyes or expressionless faces or the sadness that has sunk deep within them. I recognize some like S’s sister who is neglected of her mother’s love. I recognize a girl who was already a mother as a freshman and is now raising her toddler.

It’s hard to look at these photographs and not pause, not think of each and every one of these individuals who have tales that someone should care to tell. It’s hard to just look and think it’s just another freshman who won’t make it, who’ll drop out in two years, who’ll never get it right.

I wonder if a bright future awaits everyone. I wonder if everyone wants that future…