They were only worried
when I started writing at 8,
little poems, little stories,
growing up in a big city called Tehran,
cats and scared people running from
Iraqi bombs and the Islamic Republic.
I became a teenager and found a guitar
sang my ghazals, smoked cigars
I made boys fall in love – Istaqfurullah.
They said no
to me.
Like lightning to a big old tree,
they said sing in private,
Zan shouldn’t sing.
They were only worried. Not the authorities,
my family. They said the same
when I went away, worrying about me.
I was bright
and I could do better (right?)
than writing and singing
khoda-ro-shokr.
Mariam Saidan is a Specialist Advocate for Women’s Rights and has worked as a Children’s Rights Advocate, studied Human Rights Law at Nottingham Universality and Creative Writing at Kent University. She is Iranian, based in London and has lived in Iran, France, and the UK. She wrote her first journal at 8 years old during the Iran-Iraq war.
Notes
Ghazal – Farsi, Form of poetry in South Asia and the Middle East, whose first and every even-numbered lines rhyme
Istaqfurulah – Arabic, God forgive my sins.
Zan – Farsi, Woman
khoda-ro-shokr – Farsi, Praise be to God.