Creative Writing Samples

A friendship like that

– fragment from the chapter featured in the Anthology Grow Together by the Immigrant Writers Associations (IWA)

… They could have dropped the conversation there, but somehow both were holding a longing. The rest came naturally. They asked each other when they had come to Canada and set up a meeting for when Nazira, that was the salesgirl’s name, would finish work. Asrin purchased the shoes, hoping Nazira would get a good sales bonus. And then, they began hanging out together until they came to be good friends.

They had both come to Canada to remain, a year back. Nazira had come with a work contract, and when that expired, she had started college and worked part-time. Asrin had immigrated as an international student. She was also working part-time, but at a café on campus. They lived in the same neighbourhood in Côte-des-Neiges, a couple of bus stops separating them. It was maybe their love for books, or their memories from home, that attracted them, or maybe the long walks in the park and the many cups of tea.

…

“Yeah, professionally … but personally … I don’t have a life. I …” Nazira looked down at her teacup.

“It was also a little your choice,” Asrin prompted, “this ‘failure’.”

A brief smile appeared on Nazira’s lips.

“Really, it is not about failure. But we perceive it as a failure because it is totally foreign to the basic pattern from which we come, the ancestral Persian model. You are what they call a success. You have a wonderful family.”

“Yeah, but while you feel professionally accomplished, I feel … I failed. But it was my choice to leave work to raise my kids. It’s strange how these things play. We make choices, Nazira. We made choices,” Asrin smiled. “You are still able to love.”

“I could never scream my love to the world. An unaccomplished love. Loving doesn’t mean necessarily winning at that. I’ve made so many mistakes … in love. Then, you can say it’s success and failure at the same time. Maybe it’s because I left. Maybe because I wasn’t able to completely deny my roots. Uprooting yourself – you feel lost in a new world, in a foreign world that you cannot manage to domesticate no matter how much you apparently integrate. I made peace. I can hold on to two worlds, without holding any completely.”

Asrin bit her lips.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you when you needed me the most.”

I am broken

(fragment)

I’ve bled long ago from a wound
You inflicted…
I thought it was healed
with no scars
But, there is a sign in my heart
And tonight it is again, bleeding.

I sneaked to your side of the bed
To give you dreamy hugs
and kisses
And your phone was alive
With her image.

I know you are not with her
History deleted…
And yet, tonight
I choose to be bleeding.

PVS

(fragment)

For those that have eyes to see, for those that can hear, for those that can read.
But, mostly – for those that can still feel…

Sometimes I wish I could die … young. But you are keeping me alive … alive in this state of agony. I am dead because I don’t see any action grabbing my attention. And all the life is going on around me in a blurish joy. You are keeping me prisoner, a prisoner with a special treatment. I have food and water; I have warmth and comfort. I’m like a puppet in your arms. You struggle to keep me alive, to make me move and smile. You turn my arms to embrace you, you keep my lips soft so I wont become a corpse. But, I’m not awaken. My eyes are gazing in the depth of your eyes. You want me to see you. But all I can see is me – agonizing. I am static and all around me is alive. When you push yourself holding my body, I can feel warm, I can feel how this warmth is penetrating my cells with the lie of life. But inside me everything is dead. There is no pulse in my veins, no energy to move into life. And I feel sorry for you, for all your fight. And all you can get from me is a tear, caressing my cheek seeping in my ear. And you think it is love, or melancholy for all the beauty I could get if I could be more active.

Note: PVS= Persistent Vegetative State is not recognized as death in any legal system

Many parts

Longing…