Mom smells the Caspian Sea when I open the window. Hurricane season has arrived and we are drenched by heavy rains and storms. Inside our cozy apartment that has no particular smell, we are trapped. But it’s a good entrapment, one that I want to cling and hold on to. Perhaps for security or to stay dry.

I have long forgotten the smell of the Caspian Sea. I have forgotten the feel of its sand, its soil, its shells and rocks. I long to touch the sea shells, the imperfect cream colored rocks that sparkled in the sun, the sand that cloaked my feet, keeping them warm and dry. Why is it that I long for things that now seem so unreachable? Why am I haunted by childhood memories that make me want to be a child again?

I was too absorbed by the American dream. And what I ultimately lost as a result was my childhood dream, the dream that I have no recollection of now. What was that dream?

Storms come and go, take things away, disrupt peace for a little while. Then we have order again. We go back to the norm. The sea does the same. After the calamity and the heavy waves, it calms itself. Once tranquility and peace arrives, we can sit by the shore, watch the waves, count the shells, wet our feet…perchance to dream.

Since writing is my American dream, I will take my pen and I will write about me and the Caspian Sea. I was a child then and the sea was mine. Now that I’m too far away, on another ship, living to the sound of rivers and lakes, the Caspian Sea has become my dream. I will find it again. One day soon, I will find my way back to its sand stones…I will build a sand castle right by the shore. I will watch the waves as they wash my castle away, as they destroy my only masterpiece. Only this time it won’t be fiction.

The balcony has become a refuge for me and my lonely mind. Every night, before I go to bed, late into the night, I sit there on a white chair. My iPod is in my lap, my cell phone by my side, with a cup of Nescafe or tea, interrupted by no one, disrupted by nothing. I think as I breathe in the fresh September air. I daydream by the moonlight. I watch planes that ascend into the pitch black sky. I forget all; I am forgotten. In my head, I continue to write and sometimes I do not remember a single sentence. I become nothing. I become the night’s shadow and feel the lightness of my being. I submit myself willingly to the night and endure the unbearable lightness of being.

The ride back home was long. I didn’t say a word. I stared out the window, watching the trees like I was 12 again, curious to see nature’s wonders. We drove in silence, a heavy, unbearable silence. The roads were clear, the sky a pale blue, limitless, inviting. I wish I could ask her to take me away. I wish I could ask her to drive to Manhattan and leave me there. So what if I’d be alone, so what if I’d have to find my own way into the city. I wish I could…

Maybe it’s my pillow or my old, rusty bed that squeaks with my every turn. Or maybe I just have insomnia. I haven’t been able to sleep the past few nights. I turn and wake up in between meaningless dreams. My body is soar but I don’t fall asleep. Perhaps I’m still thinking. Thinking about him, you, me…

In my dreams I don’t see trees or the pale blue sky. My dreams are insignificant; I can’t even recall them. I wish my mind would shut off so I could just…sleep.

I am going to bed, hopefully to sleep, hopefully to dream. Please don’t disrupt me. Please don’t follow me. Please don’t make me think. Let me be a dreamer. I will be a writer when I wake up. I am watching the sparking moon and I’m wishing upon a star. If only I were 12 again.

I order a coffee and momentarily stare at the girl’s tattoo that's carefully inscribed on her neck as she punches buttons and takes my order. The tattoo is a Chinese inscription. I’m thinking of saying something about it but I don’t. I take my coffee and add sugar. I take a sip; it’s too bitter. I continue adding sugar, but it’s pointless. I pour the milk and continue stirring in the hopes of being rewarded with a sweet taste. I give up. An empty couch is to my right, I almost sink in, take out a book, my iPod and read, unwillingly, yet dutifully. The woman next to me is taking notes on the book she is reading. She doesn’t distract me; in fact, no one does.

Outside the Starbucks there are plenty of empty chairs. I sit to enjoy a cool breeze. But I am somewhere else, somewhere past the empty parking lot in front of me, somewhere past the lonely streets. Tonight is Friday and I am restless. I am depressed but I can’t even rationalize my feelings of despair. I have an urge to jump into a big pool and drown, sink, be weightless. Would that be too crazy, too insane? Am I angry at the world? No. Am I angry at myself? No.

I hug my pillow. Mother walks in and sees me sobbing by the window. She is hurt and I hate myself for hurting her. It’s nothing, I say. How can I explain what is inexplicable to me? You are tired, is that why? No mom. It’s not that. Talk to me. I don’t know what to say maman.

I don’t know what to say.

But I do know that I’m never going to order another coffee. I will stick to my vanilla latte. And if I ever get a tattoo, it won’t be on my neck.

Inside the rather dingy metro station, men in suits lighten up the atmosphere. They are headed to Georgetown for work and I only get to see them come and go. You see, I go to the opposite direction to catch my 9 am class. If I were a careless woman and didn’t mind missing class, I would ride with them and see where they’re headed to. I am not careless however; in fact I am very punctual and quite paranoid when it comes to making it on time. Let me just jump to what I really want to write about. I want to write about the little memories Nura, Swati and I are making on our little tours on buses and metros. We encounter old, creepy (please don’t be offended if you think you are old) men who stare at us, scrutinizing our every move because we are teenagers and rebels? We also run into hotties, or attractive boys if you want to be traditional, and wonder if they are single. We make random, yet surprisingly sophisticated and intellectual conversations and move on with our day. You could say we are the average teen, talking about guys, Hollywood, books, people, fantasies, obsessions and so forth. But what we see is shared only by us. No one, not even the old man who thinks he can read our minds knows what we think, what we plan to do with our lives.

Inside a rather empty metro, I look a the black watch on my wrist, the one my older brother bought from New York. Time is important these days. So is every little second that passes, every second that we see those men in suits, every second that we see a life we all want to live. I see the metro and I think Paris, Belgium, a tour de France. I think cities and packed subways and…maybe men in black suits!

The point is, life is too short my friends. So the next time you get on a metro, watch carefully. Things happen too fast…

It rained today and I'm choosing the word gloomy to describe it. But the aftermath of this rain has been surprisingly...good. I'm dancing to a Persian song, the window is halfway open and there is a fresh, spring-like smell.

Donya dige mesle to nadare...the world has no one like you, he sings.

I was telling Nura earlier that I wasn't feeling too up. I was quite devoid of motivation and thought everything was pointless. The rain was pouring lightly, hitting my lashes. The campus looked dead; the usual crowd was gone. The smokers still smoked, exhaling into the clean air, one hand holding the cigarette, the other a cup of coffee. I'm still amazed by this. By the fact that so many are addicted. Or maybe we are all addicts in one way or another.

I'm leaving the window open. The world is mine, isn't it?

I’m in an elevator, barefoot, holding five shopping bags, a big purse, a lunch bag, along with a backpack. My hair is a mess of curls and looks wet; we worked out in the morning. I’m wearing the black leggings I bought last week and a long, green shirt I borrowed from my sister. My eyeliner is smeared, leaving a black shadow underneath my lids. The mascara sill remains.

No more details. You get the picture.

So I’m in the elevator, tired and worn out. A man asks which floor and I say five please. He presses five. Before he gets off at level three, he remarks, “it’s kind of cold, the floor”, looking at my bare feet. I smile at the friendly stranger and say, “I don’t care. My shoes were killing me.” He seems satisfied by this answer and looks at me once more before wishing me a good day.

“Fifth floor,” the recorded machine says.

I get off and stagger to my apartment. My toes are swollen and red. How many times am I going to make the same mistake? How many times do I have to remind myself that pretty shoes hurt?

I did the laundry at 9 p.m. A full basket of dirty clothes was midway between the living room and my parents’ bedroom. “Do it tomorrow,” maman said. But I didn’t listen. I carried the basket into the empty Laundromat, opened the window so I could feel the wind, emptied the basket, separating the whites and darks. After the washing machine began to turn, I stood by the window. There was a tiny star to my far left. If I believed in wishes, I would have made one.

I had hoped to empty my head, clear my thoughts, cleanse them perhaps. I don’t know if I succeeded.

I closed the window with effort before I left the laundry room. I was still restless and dissatisfied with the world, with the fact that I couldn't fly away, disappear into the pure black night, the night that held all that I wanted...

I was walking down Manchester Street, listening to a song, minding my own business, enjoying the breeze. I was then approached by two young women on bikes. I hit the pause button on my iPod when I noticed one of them stopping. I thought maybe she wanted to ask for directions.

They were not lost, nor were they going to ask for directions. They were missionaries, Christian missionaries on the road to serving god. I was taken aback, but I soon became amused. I decided not to be rude so I told them I believed in God but wasn’t religious. One of the girls said religion really helped her deal with life. The other said religion might not be important to you right now, but later it will do you good. I was then handed a card with a picture of a big, luminous church on the front.

The back of the card asked a series of impelling questions:

What is the purpose of life?
What is the true nature of God?
Can families be together forever?
Where do we go after this life?
-The Church of Jesus Christ

I took the card, smiled, and walked away. Did I really care to know where I would go after this life? Did I really know the true nature of the God that I’ve believed in all my life? Nah...

But I did find it interesting that even in the 21st century, people, young or old, still travel to convert sinners into citizens of god. I suppose they think they have some sort of duty. But what about freedom of choice? I mean this is America right? I can choose…can’t I?

I appreciated the nice gestures of the two young missionaries. I even kept the card, but only to write this post. I’m living in the moment for now…where I will end up after this life, I guess only God would know.

I miss writing. I am incomplete these days. I am a fragment, an unfinished sentence. I am everything that I don’t want to be.

Last year he told us to write about childhood memories that we had long abandoned. We were asked to recall those vague memories and fill in the blanks. He wanted us to reflect and analyze and interpret.

No one is telling me to do anything these days. No one is asking me to tell my story or share a poem. No one asks and I am not finding any stories. It seems as though I’ve told everything.

Give me something to write about. Give me a prompt. Ask me a question and I’ll answer it. I don’t like feeling incomplete. I have to write.

It was a night of dancing and smokes filling the air and men and boys.

I became a cigarette again but I danced through it this time. A woman stepped on my shoe but she apologized, sincerely. The club was packed with Persians and Middle Easters and a few whites. The guys were having a good time, putting quite a bit of effort into their mimicked moves, huffing and puffing their disgustingly attractive cigarettes that almost made me choke. The women were…well they were themselves or rather replicas of themselves. Exotic, pitch black eyes, mascara, lipstick, high up-dos, leggings, hair bands, high heels, the usual. It’s superficial beauty when you wear all that make up. But make up is a routine that we have fallen for passionately, almost desperately to the point of not being able to go a day without it. But so what? Looking hot, beautiful, nothing wrong with that. Just be yourself. I will put myself in the same category of overdone eyeliner and mascara.

To be continued…due to my extreme fatigue.

After the Persian concert we drove to Georgetown. The roads became like those of Tehran. I imagined Tehran in the night. America became my beloved Iran and I…

The clubs were packed; a long line of people were waiting to get in. S and I were dancing in the back of the car. We were hungry. We parked the car somewhere near M street and walked to a small, Middle Eastern Gyro place. Unsure about where we wanted to eat, we took the Gyros and stood on M street near an Arab restaurant where live music played. R and I started belly dancing on the sidewalk.

We finally ate by a Subway restaurant. As we chewed our delicious meal, a guy who was sitting behind the window came outside towards us. “Where’d you guys get the Gyros?” We told him. Right before he left I added, “It’s really good.” “Really?” he asked. “yeah”.

The way we walked, and behaved, one could have easily thought we were drunk. But we weren’t. We were ourselves. I almost fell, trying to walk on the bumpy streets with heels. I managed however, to reach the car safely. Men glared at me the whole night and I was fine with that.

The car was beginning to smell like cigarettes. We all smelled like it, from our heads to our toes. I talked and rambled the whole ride, acting like the child I was. I told them, “hey guys, I’m a cigarette, you wanna smoke me?”

We had a good laugh. Lots of good laughs. On nights like these, you have to forget the world around you. You have to loosen up and have a good time and just be in the moment. The moments are too many to count and I, I will recount these moments of pure insanity and exhilaration as best as I can, and I will retell them…for the pure purpose of amusement.

-The End

In a moment of time, we found ourselves alone, parted from the rest of the crowd, the crowd of happy drinkers and boat owners. The Potomac River became our night guard and the rest was, quite simply, forgotten.

I was watching the American flag that danced with the wind. It was a beautiful dance, a dance with no steps, no rules or routines. I wished I could dance with the wind. Just me and the warm Western wind.

The water is too mesmerizing after sunset. And here where I am, the possibilities are so limitless that you can possess anything, even the picturesque night with the moon’s reflection.

I possessed that moment of peace, selfishly, greedily for my own sake. I held on to it and now I’m laying it out on a page. Yet I am failing to relive it, to recreate that sensation, that sense of pure liberation. I am failing.

Pop. Pop. Pop.

I sit in the back row of the bus, popping my gum. A man who’s dutifully reading his paper gives me a look. I disregard it and pop my gum even louder than before. In between each pop, I think of the road ahead of me. It's rush hour and there are red lights and accidents and loud sirens…I become lonely again. The sweet taste of my bubble gum becomes unbearable but I continue chewing.

I pop it one last time and the paper man shakes his head in dismay, without looking up. I have the urge to annoy him but I decide against it.

The bus comes to a stop. I get out and no one pays attention as I blow bubbles, carelessly popping them.