UNFULFILLED- Two- @@@ The Family

Neda had kept her books and notebooks of years past. Her wealth was all these papers, books and clothes that she had accumulated within years. She did not have the courage and the heart to get rid of them. Looking at the them, often times inspired her to write. One day she found a notebook which belonged to her first grade. She found a sketch of a girlfriend that she had drawn then. Looking at this page made her to think about that girl, she did not even remember her name or what happened to her. It had perhaps been a momentary knowing and her love of drawing which had caused her to draw that sketch. This childish drawing reminded her of the lost days of her life. Strangely it renewed everything in her mind but only temporary.

Before entering her teenage years, this thin, frail child lived a double life. Sometimes she was like a boy, climbing trees with her brother, breaking windows with rocks, and doing everything boys her age did. But other times, she was just a girl who liked to dress up and play with dolls that her mother had made her. When she was in that mood, most of the time she nagged and cried a lot with slightest disadvantage and discomfort.

However world turned completely gray when she had her very first period at age thirteen. She did not understand it. She did not know what it was. She did not want it. She was not informed about it. When her mother found out about it, she told her that now she was matured. Neda was bewildered. She thought people became mature when they were much older; besides she did not like the pain that accompanied this bleeding which according to her mother was the sign of adulthood. She ran to her room and wrote a poem. She named it "My First Day of Maturity":

"In the dim shade,

Exhausted light laid.

Suddenly the window was filled with night;

A night overwhelmed with fright;

A night poisoned with my breath.

A night smelled only of death.

A night...

I listened...

In the street, fearful, dark and apart,

Someone smashed my heart;

Like a rotten thing

In that inauspicious evening.

I listened...

My veins swelled from the storm of blood.

And my body screamed and bowed.

I listened...

To the thunder which glistened.

A stubborn fly in my room

Sang, and my air it consumed.

I listened...

I recall...

My first day of maturity in fall

When all my body was in shame,

It shivered innocently with flame;

In the dim shade,

When the light yawned and prayed."

*

When Neda entered high school, her love for literature and poetry increased over night. This was the time that she rained her father with questions and spent a lot of time in her father's study. Anything she did not understand, she showered him with her doubts. She read everything her father allowed her to read. She also read the books that her father did not want her to read. "You're too young to understand them!" This was the time that the urge of writing poetry in her increased daily. To her that compulsion was a need like hunger or thirst. She saw no choice but to write.

At this period, often times she wrote five to eight poems a day. She wrote in the kitchen, at dinner table, in her room, in her father's study, walking to or from school and even in the classroom when the teacher was not looking. The surroundings, anything that happened, simple or complex, everything and everybody were her subjects. Looking through the window, hearing the children play in the alley, changing of the seasons, they were all proper motivation for her to write about.

To Be Continued