To live, to speak, to die.

There isn’t much I could say about myself that I could explain correctly, I know so little and too much. Culturally, I’m a Kurdish man's daughter, religiously I’m a sister in Islam. Imagine this, God before culture, culture before you. You do not exist as your own. The pilgrimage to Mecca to be referred to as a Haji, and the inevitable pathway to be a man's wife, then to be referred to as Dhaka, as a son's mother, You are never your own name. Mind and body that belong to God and to family. You're only left with your eyes. The collection of moments that allow something to exist completely. This is an explanation of silence. These things are seen. .

I tell my mother I'm scared of the dark, and she tells me that Jinns only exist when you say it does. Acknowledgment; the ability to give something life through your words. You disconnect your mind and your mouth. Women tend to do that. You still have your eyes. Women tend to leave that. There are parts of me that can speak through the hands of someone else. This is an explanation of interest, The conversation between strangers.

It’s the conversation at 13 between And The Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini, the first Muslim author stumbled across in middle school. The first time you see people like you exist. A gay Muslim. An abandoned daughter. An envious uncle. A disconnect from your home. Your language that isn't entirely your language. “I knew when I met you that we weren't the same, you and I, and that it was an impossible thing that I wanted” being written at the same time it’s being read, in the back of your mother’s car, all 3 of you unaware of what came to life.

A conversation at 15, between Me and Earl and the Dying Girl. He tells you he makes movies. That's all that there is to it, nothing more nothing less. It's that easy, it’s that simple. It should be that simple. Imagine that it's not. There's nowhere else to learn otherwise.

A conversation at 15 between Dope. Different versions of adolescence from your peers, the coming of age that's more violent and unsaid. Something more lonely and stolen from you. That despite your background, you are allowed to hold your wants. You are not where you came from, it's just a part of you to take along with where you're going.

A conversation at 16 between Moonlight. You and your contradictions. The breakdown in the principal's office chair, in the repeated cries of “what do you know” after being told who you are. The telling of who you are. The becoming of it. And the unbecoming of it. What doesn't die, haunts. It's in high school and how creating scares you, the same way that other things scare you, how you reach for your best friend, that only pieces of paper know how miserable you are when you notice that your eyes stay on her for longer than it should, how you burn the pages so it doesn't exist anymore, the fear that other people see what your hands do, the anger that comes with it. They'll never know what I want to hold, I'll just tell someone else. The beach is beautiful nonetheless.

It’s when I spoke to something for the first time after living past 17 with Crush by Richard Siken. That as much as you are nothing, you are everything. My father is just my father and I am god, and all of my wants and all of my lingering longing I'm not allowed to speak about. I'm selfish for wanting it, but I can't help myself. In the “How I ruined everything by saying it out loud” I want to make things. I want those things to say what I can't. That I will let a part of myself live after trying so hard to make sure it didn’t. To give it life through my words.

The conversation at 22 with The Alchemist by Paul Coelho. Maktub. It is written. “Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself. And that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams, because every second of the search is a second encounter with God and with eternity”. How I prayed for the first time since I was 15, how I asked my God for forgiveness for reaching for it, and that it would be the last time to ask for absolution. I'll start praying again. I'm speaking in my fathers language, it's mine now too. I don't have to give anything up anymore. This is an explanation of pursuit.

There's only so much you can learn on your own. Human beings teach other human beings things. Communities are a form of survival, and they've taught me that all of this is death and life and sorrow and desire and misery and love. To live is to speak, and to speak is to die, and that's the only thing you were meant to do. I told her that I loved her, and it was the last time I saw her. I told my mother I hated her at 14 and she still looks at me differently at 23. I ask for the words I speak to be understood in a language that doesn't exist. I would have my first words spoken to books and movies. In art and poetry. The first conversation was with people who don't know I exist. I have yet to speak to another human being, and the desire lives in and outside of me. The last conversation I would have, I want to have it with someone. Anyone who will listen, who will see how it exists in me, dies when it leaves, and hold space in them so it can live. Greed is the death of all things and it lives on the tip of my tongue. Life lives there as well, They're forever lovers, one that cannot exist without the other.

Maybe it's just my eyes seeking only the things I haven’t seen yet, felt yet, hopeless wanting, disgusting desire, but I see it, my hands move on their own, it starts and it doesn't stop, I’ve acknowledged that I want it. There are people who hold parts of me who can teach me how to hold myself. I want to know how to move my hands and learn the things that I do not know. I know how to write but I don't know how to speak. There are words that are stuck in my mouth, I want to draw but my eyes and paper don't coexist in the same place. This is an explanation of aspiration. The defiance of death.

I don't know any other way to tell you these things. I just don’t know how else to say it. I exist only behind my eyes and now I’m in my hands, and that’s more of me than I know what to do with. I write, I haven’t picked up a pen in days, I can’t stop drawing, I read, I close my eyes so I don’t watch. Whoever said peace is obtained through art is a liar, I'm the most violent I've ever been. I love it because anger holds it just the same, I hate it because it’s mine, I love it because God gave me my heart and my heart gave me this. I’m in movies and books, I’m in my own paintings and paragraphs, and I'm in other people's words. I want to make things. I just want to make things. I want to help people make things. I can no longer wait. The completion of creation is a dream of its own. That is a dream of mine. To talk to people about it. I want to be proud of what I make, I want to devote myself to it, to something, to someone. I want to do everything, I want to watch people do everything, and I just want to get my hands on it all. I want to achieve my dreams, I want to achieve my fathers dreams and I want God to look as I do it, because I don't want either of them to have it. This was an explanation of defiance. I never said I wasn’t rotten. I want myself back, I want things that do not belong to me, I want to speak in the only way I know how. I want to talk to exist in my own name, to have people say it, to be brought to life through it. That's all I know. I have yet to say it correctly.