When it comes down to poetry, I never know what to say. When I focus on writing, even when I pick a random topic, I find I put a lot of myself into everything I do. I suppose everyone does. Poetry is an issue though, as there’s a certain rawness that seems pretentious when it’s down in verse form, and I as a person tend towards writing in a sprawling fashion because I’m poor at articulating things briefly (woe to anyone trying to listen to me tell a simple anecdote, always getting distracted fashioning all the minor details that I believe help set the scene – they never do). My stories and essays I write and keep locked up close to me, but I have far more faith in the tone and lyricism of those pieces; poetry is something I can share, but also something I share reluctantly because it never quite feels as genuine as I was hoping it to be.
Letting go of that feeling is something I’m working on. I’m at a stage in my life where leaps into the unknown seem necessary. At this moment I don’t want to exist in a realm of vagueness, where my “potential” is more tantalising than finding out the true limits of what I can accomplish. So I’m writing again, all sorts of things, and trying not to let what I think perfection is define what I try to do. I’m sending out work and finishing off tiny things that I thought I couldn’t write, but most importantly I am sharing that work, even when I hate it.
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I’ve been thinking a lot about things I haven’t said yet – I guess the poetry connection is there in that it seems to be a strong theme that I’m playing off at the moment, in my urge to make more emotive creations. And, I guess, that the poetry itself is in a way unsaid since it isn’t out there in the ether (all in good time I suppose I will have to say).
When you’re young you develop this rough idea of what kind of person you need to be. There’s a keen awareness that for most of your life you will be expected to both create and maintain a veneer of normality in order to properly function. There is a narrow corridor of what is acceptable to operate within – this linear narrative of human development that pushes everyone towards monthly salaries and marriage and all the other signs of successful adulthood. All the things that seem just too safe and boring on some level, but are filled with less fear than the alternative. It’s hard to decide to do something when you are aware it will look so alien to everyone else, and you have pressures of rent and food conjuring up images of disaster should you choose to veer off-course.
For me a lot of the structures I grew up around encouraged a denial of the self in favour of illusion. It was immodest to boast so I don’t like to say what I am good at. I certainly worry about disappointing or inadvertently asking too much of people and to avoid coming across as wanting I learnt to simply not ask for what I wanted. When it came to thoughts and identity issues, the best thing to do was say nothing. This way of raising children means that even now I hurt people by not fully opening up with them, and it’s something I recognise and am working to change.
In many ways we are a generation that are restricted socially in similar ways to previous ones – we like to think because we can say “sex” and be a bit wilder than those repressed BBC dramas that we are liberated. That’s not quite true. If anything the form has just shifted – sex is cool but emotions are weakness. And we all still worry so much about what the parents or the bosses will say that we often don’t express ourselves truly, we don’t dye our hair, or get tattoos, or piercings, or tell colleagues about our multiple partners, or our same-gender partners, because that will affect our chances of this ideal life that has been carved out and labelled our own. Even our thoughts and political views are fair game to be hidden away, locked up for our own good.
True, we might get to say some of that stuff some of the time, but we can’t be truly open in a casual way with everyone. We have to weigh up these concerns knowing that there is a risk of acquiring the label “deviant” and dealing with the subtle discriminations that may occur as a result. So we often make omissions, which are not lies but sting just the same. We monitor ourselves, and blame those who fail to do so for their shunning, rather than the society that cannot accept.
I mean, in this country judges ask asylum seekers why they can’t just pretend to not be gay, and on some level many people agree with that sentiment, even if just a little bit. It’s messed up that we can see the point in that.
I often wonder what would happen if we just let people grow with the idea that they can figure out the boundaries of normal without this framework we make. Would society in general be different – would we be freer in whom and how we love? Would I feel so fearful at leaving the security of a monthly salary to try and get involved in a field I truly love?
Upon reading ‘The Bell Jar’ when I was 15 I plunged into a melancholic phase. I could properly identify with the feeling not fitting in the culturally defined role of womanhood and that made me reflect sadly on all the possible futures I might have which were marred by this fact. I realise that I’m drifting back there again at the moment – mainly because I can’t articulate all those little things that make me different to everyone. I’m not saying that anyone in my social circles would have hostile reactions, but it’s a strong fear and the idea of risking your livelihood or support networks just to say something private is terrifying and has been reinforced as unwise through years and years of upbringing.
I’ve spent the past month writing out letters to different people, each asking for different things. Essentially though they really all just spoke of me wanting to be heard and seen as who I actually feel I am. I’m going to persevere with them, even if I’m not the best at opening up, and it helps that I am trying this fresh start with a new career. It becomes a clear beginning where people can actually know me as I am from the moment we meet. The truth is you can hold your tongue till it bleeds out but eventually something should break, and I am now breaking in the best possible way.
Rushaa Louise Hamid 