Sparks Like Stars

by Nadia Hashimi

What a thing to say! As if a girl is made of lesser materials. Have you forgotten the words of Rumi? You are not a drop in the ocean. You are the entire ocean in a drop.

Let people serve you information, he had said mischievously, but never let them serve you your opinion.

I had always been my father’s spirited girl, the child who had grown up in the halls of the palace. But the absence of my family made me reconsider who I was. If it hadn’t been for my father’s outstretched arms, perhaps I never would have dared to leap from the sofa cushions. If it hadn’t been for my mother’s applause, I might not have dared to dance in our living room. I only moved as boldly through the world as I had because I knew they would catch me, no matter how far I fell. Without them, I might be nothing more than a coward. But maybe, I thought, if I could manage to feign bravery in this moment, then I could feign bravery at another moment. And maybe if I feigned bravery enough, I could grow into it.

If Ibn Sina were here, he would tell you to imagine yourself as a falling girl. You are suspended in air, clouds so thick you cannot see. Your limbs are spread wide and touch no surface. Nothing reaches you. Nothing touches you. And yet you know you exist. How is that possible? I had not wanted to disappoint him, but I wasn’t sure I understood Ibn Sina’s philosophical ponderings. I had closed my eyes, playing the part of a girl floating through space. I existed because I was here to say so. Even in suspension, I could think and breathe and be me. You need no one to confirm you. You are everything you believe yourself to be.

A man holds his empty hand out for help. Another man wears thick gold rings on every finger and has a brick of gold in the palm of his hand. Which man struggles more to bear the weight of his outstretched hand?

I crossed scorched earth for the second time in my life, unsure if it would be my spirit or my knees to buckle first. Unsure which fire would shape my destiny and which would burn me. Unsure if what I was running toward was any better than what I was running from.

People are God’s cruelest creations. They’ll step on the smallest of backs to feel an inch taller.

Don’t expect him to bow at your feet because you saved him today. He’s saved himself every other day of his life.

Luxury and caresses, one’s fortune had been Before cast into an abyss he’d never seen; Another lifted from the pit and placed on a throne Upon his head, a crown of glittering stone In the turning of tides, the world takes no shame It is prompt to dole out both pleasure and pain.

Whether by blood, by fire, or by default, to become a mother is no easy feat.

Finders keepers, children shout on sunlit playgrounds. Finders keepers, their parents whisper in halls of antiquities.

“You would be surprised how many fingers can fit on one trigger.”

“How desperately we struggle for meaningless things—revolution, martyrdom, bricks of gold,” he says. “When the only thing worth fighting for is a glimpse of heaven in this life.”

“You know, we’re so damned afraid that talking about the ones we’ve lost will hurt us as much as losing them did. So we just stop talking about them. But that’s when we truly lose them.”