Like every other college student, the end of the spring semester has brought a tiredness that’s settled in my bones like a sickness I can’t shake, a soreness without a cure. Endings and new beginnings bring a great deal of reflection for me, which is even more fitting with the ending of national poetry month. I’ve been contemplating a lot about what it means to be a poet. The way I occupy space digitally has changed since I was 15, the way I view creativity has shifted, and the metaphors I construct are built with different tools than I used to have.
It’s been a year since I became an author, nearly three since I started writing the book that is still close to my heart. A year since prom, since high school graduation, since the goodbyes. A year since what I titled my ‘last summer,’ where I treated every interaction with everyone I loved like a heartfelt goodbye. If there is anything I have internalized in the past year, it is that nothing is guaranteed. It’s like a line in my poem ‘the things that matter’ in my poetry collection (a complete work in progress, as if I don’t talk about it enough). ‘Nothing is guaranteed/ but how lucky am I to spend time/ with people that feel like home.’ Or something like that, that snippet is from memory, which is impressive in and of itself considering how long ago I wrote it.
Nothing is guaranteed. Not time, not success, not people, not dreams, not goals. I’ve never done well with that. I like believing that every good thing will last forever, but the truth is half of the poems in my book that detail beautiful memories I have with friends and family are just that now. Memories. The only place it exists is in my poems and in my mind’s eye. There was a time I thought there would be nothing else but getting lost on a new college campus after crying because I didn’t advance to the semifinals in a debate tournament. Fast food runs at midnight with the windows open after arguing over who got the front seat. Once, I sat next to my great-grandmother and held her hand as she told a story about a hurricane she lived through, or the art she made, or the groceries she needed. Once, I was eleven and thought nothing else would ever exist but her laugh and the chattering TV.
I stopped competing in debate, and what I had been so upset about doesn’t matter anymore. What matters is the friend I cried to and how, to this day, we still disagree about who it was that got us lost (it was him). I still go on midnight fast food runs in a new state with new people. There’s a picture of me and my great-grandmother on my dorm room’s wall. This isn’t to say that those poems don’t matter, or that the memories don’t matter, it’s the contrary. It’s just about how things change. Everything changes and right now that feels like the biggest and most important thing I could discuss. More than tests and stress and finals: where does the love go? I’ve been asking this question for years. If I don’t pick what matters to me, who does? It matters because I say it does. The love was there, and it existed once. The love was there once, it will be there forever. Whether I remember it or not. Love is the kind of thing that echoes.
I used to be so much more methodical about my Instagram presence as a writer. I wanted to build an audience, I wanted strangers on the internet to tell me my poem made them think differently, that they loved it so much, that it impacted them. I tackled sharing my writing on the internet like I did everything else: like I had to outdo the best version of myself that does not, has never, and will never exist. Over the past few months, I’ve mellowed out slightly. These days I’m not so rushed to meet my future that I forget to greet my present. Who am I to not accept a present gratefully? I wasn’t raised that way. And I am so grateful. Every day when I wake up my first thought is I’m so grateful: I have to find a way to earn this life, this good fortune I’ve had to be in university studying what I want to study and pursuing my dreams. My second thought is guilt is not gratitude. I should put that up on my wall. I am trying to be grateful for my present without apologizing for living in it.
I’m aware this newsletter is a little bit all over the place. My organization depends on the day; I tried to tell you what you were signing up for with the title. Anyways, creativity is different for me now. It’s not about writing a poem every day without fail, formatting it, posting it, grinning at the 17,000 likes, and then moving on to the next thing with inevitable disappointment when the ‘next thing’ didn’t do as well. It’s about appreciating where I am, stopping more frequently to look at my surroundings. I still have discipline, but I have so much more joy in writing and creativity since I’ve placed less pressure on external validation. I’m not treating creativity like an office job because it’s not one. Before anything else, I have always written for myself and my joy. I love the process of writing so much. It has been a constant throughout my life. I’ve been happier placing less focus on being ‘the best I can be’, instead I’ve been honoring where I am now.
Spring semester has been exhausting. Truly, I want to live in a Holiday Inn where somebody else makes the bed (Phoebe Bridgers, Smoke Signals). But taking this time to reflect during April and National Poetry Month has made everything feel less overwhelming. This month, I received my first-ever award for poetry. Complete with a note from my professors and a plague with my name on it- spelled correctly and everything! What made the achievement so meaningful to me was the fact that I didn’t need it. It made me so extraordinarily happy: I called home ecstatic, I bounced when I walked, and I celebrated with Taco Bell. I honestly don’t remember the last time I felt so accomplished. When I say I didn’t need it, I mean that once, the plaque would have been the confirmation I needed that my writing isn’t bad or pointless. When I walked up to receive the award, I didn’t feel like a fraud. I didn’t feel like it was the only thing giving merit to my passion and hard work. It is the first time I have ever felt that way and it made it the most gratifying honor I have ever received.
I am tired but grateful to be right here, writing. And as always, I’m grateful to you for reading.
“This love is so loud. It echoes back louder every time.” April 5th, 2023
"You just like feeling needed
but you'll resent me when you show up." April 8th, 2023
"I complimented the moon last night and
she thanked me. Isn't it funny
the things we'll do for a smile?" March 31, 2023
"This chapbook is about rediscovering what writing means to me. It's more than habit, compulsion. It's an act of love. It's my passion. Writing a book is for me before it's for anyone else. I don't need anyone else's validation that I'm impressive or doing a lot: I just want to have fun. I will write because despite everything, I will always love it, no matter what form it takes in my life." March 25, 2023
my writing <3
I was published in my university’s literary magazine this month! Other than that, I’ve mostly been drafting a lot of different things.
some of my favorite reads
Fog Light, Short Story on Cobra Milk Mag by Samantha Singh
The Ringing Phone at the End of the World, Short Story on BUBBLE by E.A. Garfield
Miss you. Would like to take a walk with you., Poem by Gabrielle Calvocoressi
I’m Bored I’m Lonely I’m Throwing a Party, Poem on the Chestnut Review by Noor Hindi
I Was Rejected From Every MFA Program I Applied To. Here's Why I'm Not Giving Up, Essay on The Slush Pile by Sofía Aguilar
books i’ve read: month of april
War of the Foxes by Richard Siken
The sinking of Clay City by Robert Wrigley
Beloved by Toni Morrison
songs
Espero Que Estes Bien by Vale
Orange Blood by Mt. Joy
Bindi in the Dirt by Mikayla Pasterfield
Guts by Leith Ross
Cool About It by boygenius
If you’re a student, I hope finals treat you well and that you are as kind to yourself as you can be. Whoever you are and wherever you’ve found yourself this Spring, I hope you’ve noticed the moon. I hope the flowers have been blooming and stopping you in your tracks. I’ll see you here next month, and as always, you can find me @nia.m.writer on Instagram to read more of my poetry and message me if you liked anything you read in today’s issue!
PS: in my 3/25/23 writing dump, you’ll see another reason I’ve been pondering the place writing has in my life and what it means to me. Additionally, I’ve been taking a creative writing class this semester and writing a lot more fiction! The writing dump is mostly snippets I’ve written since working with fiction. I’ve used National Poetry Month to try to experiment more and expand my horizons as a writer, which is why I haven’t been submitting as much.
-Nia Mahmud <3