Let’s not get to know each other. Let’s not learn our favorite colors and flowers. Let’s not try to understand. Let’s not remember our secrets. Let’s not make memories that last. Let’s not pretend we are in love when we are far from it. Let’s not make promises or throw out “I am sorry” when we have nothing to offer in return. Let’s not make plans for the future. Let’s not ask how we feel inside or what we do when we are alone. Let’s not ask about trust. Let’s not call it making love.
Let’s hurt. Let’s close our hearts. Let’s forget the future. Let’s pollute the present and smoke through it so it all becomes a blur. Let’s walk in silence because our words only waste our breaths.
Let’s fuck. Let’s eat and blow, and puff on that last cigarette. Let’s turn the music up so we can’t hear each other. Let’s get high on the weed we spent all our savings on.
Let’s see others and not be exclusive. Let’s be undefined. Let’s stay in the dark where no one can see us, touch us, tell us we aren’t right for each other. Let’s kiss under the blanket, above the sheet that covers the bloodstained mattress where other women slept. Let’s stay in the dark where we can lie to each other as we sweat and taste the salt as our lips intertwine. Let’s shut off the lights so we don’t have to learn each other’s expressions or the betrayal in our eyes. Let’s not wait with expectation. Let’s not care about the world we corrupt, the souls we puncture, the hearts we break.
Let’s just be until the universe pulls us apart and we inevitably break and return to our lonely selves. Let’s be until the skies shatter and the earth falls and the ground beneath us disappears. Let’s be betrayers. Let’s be unbreakable. Let’s be lovers. Let’s fly together to sinful places where no one can find us.

There is something oddly comforting about sleeping next to a stranger. It is perhaps because his body isn’t really mine, but open to be explored, touched, kissed, caressed. I trust him in that moment. I sleep next to him, sharing a space, a connection that gives me a break from loneliness. The space isn’t significant—a bedroom, a hotel room, a couch in the living room. And the words exchanged aren’t much, but soft affirmations of what feels good, and what doesn’t, of what I want, and what he wants. It’s an exchange of whispers in the light, in the dark, under a blanket or above. Sometimes we stop speaking, but I listen with my body and it’s a relief to not have to rely on words.
He wraps his arm around my neck, heavy, but comforting. He is my stranger—I wake up to his smell, the leftover cologne that sinks into my hair and skin. He doesn’t open his eyes, doesn’t see my quick glance at his face whose features I had forgotten. He doesn’t think about me; he is asleep. But his body recognizes mine, while his mind is elsewhere.
I hear a train moving on the bridge across the street, and the rattling reminds me that it is time to get up. I untangle myself from my stranger’s arm but he unconsciously pulls me back into his chest. I push myself forward and free myself. This time, my stranger turns his body away from me.
My dress is resting on a chair near the window. I slip it on; it feels cold and unfamiliar. The room begins to fill with sunlight, and for a moment, I am bathed in warmth. Before I go, I take a last look at my sleeping stranger. I slide my fingers through his downy hair, and rest my fingertips briefly on the back of his neck. His freckled skin feels warm.
I step lightly on the uncarpeted floor as I make my way down the dark hallway, to the front door. Outside, everyone is moving, a mother pushes a stroller, a man arranges fruits outside his shop, a boy pedals on his bike, a young woman runs to catch the train. Everyone is moving. I stand at a corner to take a moment of stillness, and something within me aches, hurts, and the initial comfort of the past few hours dissipates. I face the world alone once I leave my stranger’s bed. I can’t expect to be remembered, wanted or defined, and this is the part that hurts.
I walk toward the staircase that leads to the train and force my stranger’s face from my thoughts.

Death settled inside a candle-lit home where mourners struggled to comprehend an incomprehensible parting of a soul. The living talked of the dead without knowing how, with silences that needed no filling, with tears and smiles that masked sadness. They recalled memories and wondered how they could cope with a permanent absence of a physical body. The spirit remained alive, floating around the house, on the walls, between the cracks, inside the rug fabric, in between door hinges.
Death settled in at night, pinching my skin like a needle going through my body, the way the names of dead uncles permeate and live inside my skin, trapped with a trace of sharp blade. These are the names of the dead that live forever in me. I look at the living, the passengers on the train. I look at the hands that hold another living being, at eyes that are vibrant with color, at faces that lust after life. We are the living and we hold the memory of the dead without ever knowing where they’ve gone. The names of the dead pinch my skin like a sharp blade and I close my eyes to retain their faces, their names.

He said every person is a universe. When two people meet, they are exploring one another’s intimate spaces, their individual stories, fears, dreams, inspirations and uncertainties. Whether the two continue this exploration is up to them. Once one of them leaves, however, they are strangers again, bereft of the memories they created or where going to create, bereft of the bond they shared or could have shared, bereft of the words they exchanged or the stories they would write together. They become another passerby on a street corner who is walking the dog or stopping at a deli to buy a newspaper and a cup of coffee. They become the stranger who is disconnected, who moves farther and farther away until he becomes a faded memory, or perhaps completely forgotten.
New York is a disconnected city of beautiful strangers. Every discovery, every encounter, every exploration of another person’s universe is a magical journey. Yet every connection is a risk, for many decide to leave the city. Some simply walk away without warning; others betray your trust and leave a gaping hole in your open heart. The sidewalks are like the gates in an airport; you bump into someone who can share the same destination with you, travel within your personal universe, take flight with you in your sorrows and your riveting pleasures.
New York is a city of drifters, of hopeless romantics, of dreamers, artists, dancers, poets, writers and musicians. Many of them can’t make or keep promises. Most love the adventure, the thrill of discovering another person like them. They like the risk of opening their hearts, their unpublished books, their unfinished compositions, their unwritten songs. They like the pain even when it’s over, for it gives their existence meaning; it gives them a reason to revert to old habits- the smoking after their morning coffee, after the unfinished lunch meal, after drinking from the bottle of whiskey they keep hidden. And they go on breaking hearts because they give up on love and because they believe no one is going to keep a promise, or maybe because it’s just easier to be mistrusting.
Every person is a universe of secrets; be careful whose secrets you unravel.

My father’s body is a field of scars. His surgery scars run deep on his chest, his abdomen, his neck and knees. The one on his chest right below his heart, protrudes outward; it forever remains on his skin like a permanent stain. But the invisible scars that no one sees are those that lurk behind his small eyes, underneath the wrinkles, the moles, the lines above his brows.
My father’s hands too are colored with scars. As a child, I used to press my hand against my father’s and we laughed at the difference in size. I held his hands as he walked me to school and crossed the roads in the silence that we both shared and would continue to share as I grew up. His hands are rough, not only because of age and their sensitivity to cold, but also because they bear the weight of separation, immigration and loss. In childhood, my father was immortal. It wasn’t until after immigration, after the surgeries and the strict diets that turned my once strong father into a fragile man where I learned to accept his mortality. Often in my dreams, he disappears and I wake up crying, and the dream haunts me for the rest of the day.
My father’s body is a field of scars. In our house in Virginia, he tends the yard, takes out the trash, checks the mail every afternoon when he returns from work and solves crossword puzzles in an Iranian newspaper. He washes the dishes harshly with a sponge before putting them in the dishwasher; my family gave up arguing with him over this. He lays out plates and silverware on the dining room tables of the Marriott Hotel and accumulates bruises on his arms and knees. When I ask about them, my father smiles and says, “I must have run into something again.”
My father is immune to pain; he is the survivor of a revolution in which he did not voluntarily participate. My father’s hands now hold his eight-month-old granddaughter. In his arms, my niece laughs and my father returns the laughter – the same kind he has shared with me for 24 years. In family discussions, my father is usually absent; he listens and watches but none of us are sure if he is really there. When something worries him like when he forgets where he placed the car keys or when he is lost while driving, my father whistles. And though his memory is weak, his vision imperfect, his body thin, he displays a contentment that leaves me at awe.
My father’s body is a field of scars, and I write to unravel them.

I miss A sometimes. I’ll be waiting at the station, and a boy will walk out of a train with his backpack, reminding me of A who always carried one. There is comfort in remembering someone who looked forward to seeing me, who thought he could have me, someone who waited for me. There is comfort in remembering his apartment and the unfamiliar setting that, for a short while, became familiar. There is comfort in remembering him offering me a plate of chicken for dinner or him introducing me to his sister, who reminds him to be a gentleman and walk me to the subway at the end of the night. There is comfort in remembering the kisses we shared, and the time I slept next to him and remained awake all night listening to his breathing, and learning of his sudden, jolting movements that worried me. There is comfort in remembering those early evenings where we sat across from each other at a coffee shop, looking at magazines and thinking out loud. And that time he told me he thought he knew my mother when I talked about her. There is comfort in remembering his face, even those cold eyes that met mine when it was all over—that piercing, betrayed look that I would always remember.
I miss A sometimes as I drift through the streets of Manhattan, on the train going over the bridge back to Brooklyn, at a Spanish café with dim lights, at my apartment when I write and think of his writing-how the first time he read something out loud I was struck by the honesty and wit his words carried. I missed him the day I passed the aquarium store where he told me about his fondness for fish. I walked across the Williamsburg bridge and remembered our walk that Sunday morning where we sat on a bench facing the river after we crossed over. I sat on the same bench and pictured us sitting there together, him thinking he had a future with me. I sat there and watched the sunset and he became a bittersweet memory- bitter for my betrayal, sweet for the memories we shared.
I remember him saying New York was unfit for him, and I remember not understanding what he meant. There is comfort in knowing that I understand him now, years later, that I comprehend the depth of loneliness one can feel in such a city.
There is comfort in missing someone, but then there is the emptiness yet to be filled.

Time is trivial here. I drift through my house, my feet lightly brushing against the carpet. I am a visitor and it appears as though I speak a different language now that I am back in my parents’ home. I stumble upon memories as I go through boxes in my closet; I find old letters, diaries from my first years of immigration and the sadness of the past comes back. Every thought is on paper and as I read, each word sinks in, adding another layer to my new sadness. There are many more boxes, many more letters and many more objects of the past. I tell my mother about these little discoveries, how some of them make me smile and laugh. She does not understand the meaning behind keeping such a collection. She only remarks that I should get organized. “It’s not about organization, it’s about the memories,” I argue. But my mother insists that one does not have the time to go back to such things and that if they were organized…
“Nevermind,” I say and go back to my closet of memories.
Despite the languid air I feel around me, for I am just a traveling visitor, my family reminds of the importance of time and of age. My mother believes that if she had arrived 10 years earlier, she would have been done with her business and could have possibly reached a proper age of retirement. And then there is my father, who has a sore neck from a cold because he still believes he is immune to cold weather . And my grandmother, who has white hair that she has not groomed or cut in some time, who does not hear well, who walks slowly and sleeps half the day. I am constantly reminded of life passing and that of my niece’s just beginning.
This is a house of memories, even if my mother does not remember the past. The common thread that held us together is the losses and goodbyes and the starting overs. We rebuilt ourselves just as we made a home for ourselves. And time helped us cope with our wounds even if it did not heal them. But it’s important to acknowledge what we once were: ordinary people with bigger dreams, imprisoned and looking for a way to break free.
I drift through my house, gently walking down the stairs into the kitchen, making coffee, making tea, sipping it on the porch under a half October moon as the crickets sing and my grandmother laments a disorderly kitchen. I take one of the many unfinished diaries and write a few words: languid, lament, lethargic. I look at life happening around me and the countless cups of tea that we make and the fatigue that lingers in my mother’s eyes. But before I can form a sentence on paper, someone interrupts and then it all matters, every ticking moment that will one day be just a memory.

I came on the roof to vocalize and sing. The air was fresh. It was the perfect fall night and the moon glittered, magnificent and orange and a bit creepy. I sang some of my favorite Iranian songs and a helicopter passed by and I imagined a war-zone, where bombs were going off and someone was singing one last time. I ended my song and pulled out my lighter. I smoked into the fresh, black night sky and swayed as I listened to Madonna’s “The Power of Goodbye.” There was no one there – just me, the moon and a beautiful city that hid secrets and covered the loneliness with its pretty blanket. The truth remained to be known only to those whose hearts were broken, who suffered the pain and wandered the city…and here I was on the roof, trying to let go. I could sit for hours, watching the moon, wondering the same thing I always wonder: when will it become okay?
I thought briefly, as I often due out of old habit, about Iran. But more and more, Iran becomes vague, fading into an abyss, and I no longer need to think of it. The idea of it is still somewhat shocking. The fact that it is no longer a tangible space, but a memory, a series of dreams and thoughts and people that are no longer there. Only a few remain whose names I know. And street names that I remember. But the desire to retain it, live and breathe it is no longer present in my state of mind. Even in my heart, the door is closed. There only remains the tragedy of it. It’s like a legend now, a country whose imprisoned writers escaped to tell the story.
I looked to the orange moon ahead of me, in the shape of an imperfect half circle. It was quite orange, the perfect fall color. I wondered what life would be like there, if there was one. Would it perhaps make more sense? I imagined not. I thought about the air I was now polluting, and I thought about letting go and “the power of goodbye” and all my thoughts became a mesh of smoke, rising above without ever solidifying. I bent my body backward, looking at the reversed sky, the starts shimmering, and for a moment reality disappeared.
Where am I? I wondered.

He said now he understands what I meant when I said I was nostalgic.
We walked through Washington Square Park and he was reminded of his college years and the memories for which he is now nostalgic for. He wants the past now because they are no longer attainable, and because the present is a bit sad- a sadness we both share, an emptiness for a love we both seek, which appears to be impossible to hold, touch, keep, retain.
He is now nostalgic.
I ask him to try and use his nostalgia as a source of creativity. Write a play, a short story, make a film out of it, I say because I wrote so much that it finally one day ended. All my papers became tainted with the word, and every word out of mouth sounded like it. I even tasted it in my meals.
And now I relate to my friend, who tells me he is suffering from nostalgia.
We continue to walk and eventually the park closes, and the garbage trucks interrupt our conversations, and our sentences become memories that one day we may be nostalgic for.

Like Jay Gatsby, some of us like to recreate the past. Though for Gatsby, it wasn’t just a recreation, but an inability to let go of the past. He thought he still had it — his old love, his old self, the way things used to be. Nothing and no one around him convinced him otherwise.
I often fall deep into the past. I have a natural tendency to do so. I like lingering there sometimes, for I find it hard to let go of the comfort it once had. The comfort that is now just bitter and irrelevant to my present.
It’s like finishing a cigarette and watching the last bit of it burn, the smoke that once entangled you now just a memory. This is the past. What you lost cannot be recreated, for it no longer has the power to come back to life in its original form. Even in writing, you cannot recreate the feeling. What you wrote yesterday will not feel the same the next day.
My obstacle everyday is to let things to. Lately, I have had to let people go too. That has been the hardest and most challenging task. I have been going on the roof of my apartment in Brooklyn on these last few summer evenings where the air is gradually getting cooler. I stand there, awed by so much beauty around me that my struggles appear minute and insignificant. I let my sadness, my thoughts and reflections drift into the open air where no one can hold or touch them. No one listens. No one talks back. I simply let them drift and disappear into the atmosphere.
And then, for a brief moment, my soul calms a bit. My mind rests, for just a savory moment. I breathe in the feeling of calm. I stretch out my arms up toward the sky, and I let them fall once again. What’s left now is the present — the smell of fall, the faint breeze that ends the summer heat, the notion that I am still here, still standing, still dreaming of a bigger life. I can create the present…
This is letting go.