An Anthology of Notes App entries

During my first year at university, I started using the Notes app to record my thoughts. Whenever something stirred, I wrote it down. This post is a selection of those entries, shaped by change.

Will update as I go.

shore

ive been so tired lately
like the tide just keeps pulling me under
and I can't do anything about
the sand and debris it drags over me

but I know, I know
that one day the moon will
come, pull the tide back,
and maybe for a moment
I'll be free of it all,
face up to the sky,
eyes glistening in moonlight
before it all comes rushing back — 12th of Feb, '26

irony

an Iranian student,
studying at an American institution,
as Iranian missiles carve streaks of fire into the sky above me.

i am told i am being ‘liberated’
by an American leader
via the assassination of Iran’s leaders.

i receive updates from the American embassy,
and also messages of safety
from the Iranian-American president of my university.

ahhhh that hyphen, that damn hyphen. Iranian. American.

god bless cosmopolitanism,
god bless that part of me that insists on belonging,
belonging to places that do not belong to each other,
god bless having to carry two names in one body,
and having no where to call home. — 3rd of March, '26

rise

when I die,
bury me under the great cypress
don’t erect a headstone for my grave
and when I die,
do not visit my grave
under the great cypress.

for I am not dead.

when the great cypress’ roots wrap my body
when they meet my eyes,
the cypress will see through them all I have seen.
it will see the love, the rage, the contempt yes,
but it will also see itself, standing tall.

for when its roots caress my fingers,
the cypress will feel through them
the pain of gripping a knife, of carving something of your own flesh and bones—
but also the rough certainty of its own bark.

and when its roots coil around my heart,
they will drink from it—
the same love,
the same rage,
the same old contempt for man.

I will rise with it,
taller than I ever stood in life,
my eyes fixed forever on the skyline.

so do not visit me when I die.

if you wish to see me,
look to the cypress—
the one that will not stop staring
into the skyline. — 26th of March, '26

geranium

in my cold, bitter world
i thought of you.
so that your scent could come and
permeate through my garden
i thought of you,
so that i could hear your laughs,
so that i could perch them like the geraniums,
on the windowsill.

little did I know,
that your laughter was the sky.

the whole sky. — 11th of April, '26

postscript to self

To you, 7 semesters in the future;

Spread your wings, yes,
but don't forget that certainty fractures without warning.

Even Icarus laughed as he fell, as death whispered in his ear.

Did he laugh at the symmetry of ambition,
that the moment of ascent is always one breath
away from the fall,

Or did he laugh at the way the world keeps turning,
even as a fallen body cuts through the air? — 12th of December, '25

to start empty

in 12 hours, I become a university student.

I will, once again, have something to chase.
something to carve my nights and days around.

and finally, rid myself of the weight of weightlessness,

and feel the edge of purpose cut into me.

in 12 hours, I will, once more,
work for the knife,
let it claim its due,
cut by cut,
hour by hour,

until I am shaped into something it can use. — 19th of August, '25

and to end empty

slowly

i thought i was done
and i am,
but not in the way you think.

yes,
i don’t wake up early on sundays anymore.
nor do i sleep as soon as i get home.
instead,
i’ve forgotten how to sleep at all.

slowly

you ask me why i’m still stressed.
yes,
there’s nothing left to work toward,
nothing left to carve out of myself

but im still sitting here
staring at what has become of me,
at the edges of what could have been.

slowly

every time i think i am finished,
my body reminds me
consequences don’t arrive on time.
decisions surface only later,
after the storm has already passed.

the truth is
i am being immobilized.
paralyzed by nothing,
which is also everything.

i thought i was done,
and i am
just not in the way you think.

i am spent.
exhausted.
learning how to exist
as nothing
after once being everything.

slowly

i am realizing
i am still working for the knife—
that i still start the day lying
and end with the truth

that my fingers are still clenched.
only now
clenched around nothing

so i drag nothing
along the edges of nothing,
hoping to catch something

slowly,

trying to conjure
what was lost. — 1st of May, '26

hayes

you don’t understand
you give me chills,
the ones that climb up my spine,
the ones that leave my mouth dry,
like I’ve swallowed the sea.

you gave me chills last week.
i was bent over an exam, but then
i remembered us,
on that beach, that night,
you told me to pounce on anything, everything
that arrived.

but I didn’t.
I watched the waves instead,
how they pounced at each other,
endlessly
with nothing to lose.

eventually, I told you
your advice sounded familiar
to something I was learning:
the gale-shapley algorithm,
two groups, reaching, choosing.

i said

the ones who move first
who pounce
they get the best they’re allowed to have.

the ones who wait
end up with what’s left

i continued staring at the waves

you gave me chills last week
in that exam room,
when the question found me.

salt in my throat,
graphite blurring,
the tide rising

and suddenly
the waves again,
curving over themselves,
and your voice through the breeze,
insisting,
again and again
pounce.

you gave me chills yesterday.
when i got my exam back,

i noticed it was as if something in me
had moved
before I even knew how to.

like, somewhere between fear
and memory,
i had leapt.

you don’t understand
you give me chills — 5th of May, '26

speed

as a child I never understood why one would speed

why place your life
in the hands of something built to leave
why gamble on momentum
why

but i dropped you off at the airport yesterday
and i would be lying if i said i didn’t gamble.

as a child i never understood what it felt like

to have the wind kiss my face
to have its fingers run through my hair
the way yours once did.

to watch streetlights disappear
before they come into sight
much like you did.

to feel nothing as you gamble everything
on a pile of metal.
to bet on a losing dog,
much like i did.

i still don’t understand why people speed

but it felt great knowing my body was moving at
one hundred eighty
while yours moved at twice that

did you see me from up there?
the car threading between all the others

did you see how i was
blurring the lines in my periphery
blurring the lines between life and death
blurring

blurring until the only thing i felt
was how badly i wanted you back

i still don’t understand speeding
but maybe i loved you like that
and now i understand why it’s hard to stop — 9th of May, '26

a relationship with the sun

to heal is to have once loved,
i tell the sun and maybe myself.

i close my eyes and see yours
through the sunlight kissing my eyelids.
i open them and look down at the waves:
dark, serene.

i remember looking into your eyes and realizing that
when you shut them,
the sky loses two of its brightest stars.

i don't even know what i'm healing from.

this place feels like a person,
warm, much like you—
the sun is rising on this port,
where crickets synchronize with my heartbeat, where the lingering night breeze brushes my hair,
where the palm's crown shuffles and shushes my grief,
and the birds periodically pass by to check on me,

i know that i am healing.
the shore approaches to tell me so,
the sun's warmth on my skin tells me so.

to heal is to have once loved, i tell the sun,
and it understands.

i can manage with two fewer stars in the sky.

the sun rises higher now,
and still every time i close my eyes,
there they are:
those two lustrous stars.

ahhhh forough said it best- her name translates to luster;

say something to me, please.
i am at the mercy of this window.
i have a relationship with the sun.

to heal is to have once loved,
the shore would tell you that.
the sun would tell you that. — 17th of June, '26

afloat

throw me to the wind
I yearn to feel its touch
have it kiss my brow and whisper tales
of devotion, sacrifice, and love.

throw me to the wind
I beg to feel the morning dew
gather on my skin,
mix with the salt of my eyes
which will finally know freedom.

throw me to the wind
I ache to rise and to fall
To burn and to suffer
To disappear and be forgotten.

throw me to the wind
I will carry a smile into its vastness
I will tear out my own roots
And let it take me to its garden.

And when they find me
face in the grass, smiling
They will find that not even Death
could smother the Love in me.

what a ruinous thing. — 10th of July, '26

sand, salt, and the memory of you.

the water keeps washing over
your footsteps in the sand

one
two
three
four
five fingers

filling up with seawater
i stare at the ebbs and flows
how the sea comes in and washes over
the memory of you

one
two
three
four

do you remember when you thought you would die?
scribbling your will on the back of a Cornflakes box
do you remember how afraid you were?

i do, i think i do

one
two
three

when i held you in my arms, kissed your neck
your long hair got stuck in my mouth
we talked about that later
and laughed at how absurd everything had become
do you remember?

i do, i think i do

one
two

we set fire to our lives
let everything burn, until only we remained
do you remember when we also
set fire to your physics textbook
we both hated mechanics
do you remember?

i do, i think i do

one

before you left
i took your left with my right,
took you to the shore
you complained that the sand got in your eyes
I blew into them as hard as i could
you started tearing up
and so did i

do you remember?

the tide has risen.
the sea has washed over the memory of you
and brought with it enough sand
to patch your footsteps.

do i remember?
i don’t. do you? — 15th of July, '26

love

I met Love, after the show,
pressed against the barricade,
it looked like a person still leaning on,
long after the encore
love was the shape of their eyes, still staring,
silently still.

I met Love, while thrifting
I just caught it in my periphery:
a vintage postcard from indochina
depicting two ladies, shoulder over shoulder
smile over smile.
Love was not shaped like a heart.
it was a 3:2 piece of glossy paper

I met Love, while driving
both hands on the wheel as it sang
from the passenger seat,
“I got a pocket, got a pocketful of sunshine”
Love looked like singing this song, on a cloudy day.
a windy one, too, where the wind sang along.

I met Love waiting to get my tetanus shot.
it was a young man holding a phone down to his friend’s ear.
the friend, in a wheelchair, motorcycle burns and right arm in a sling:
“it’s just a small burn mom, im fine, i promise”
Love looked like a bruised hand,
squeezing a shoulder wrapped in gauze

Oh, I also met Love on Discord,
A deliberate, private friend of three years whom I’ve never really seen,
Never really heard,
telling me there are temperatures to silence.
Warm and cold silences.
I met love realizing theirs was the warm kind.

I met Love watching my friend shake salt onto his Pad Thai,
looking away from his hovering hands,
I saw the people I had met only a few days ago.
I met Love watching them talk about their lives,
I met Love watching one of them wrap her arm around his, as the salt still fell,
I met Love saying goodbye to them after that meal.
I met Love knowing that was the last I’d see them.

What is the shape of Love?
Is it a heart?
Oh, definitely not.

Love hops and hides in concert stages,
in thrift stores, in hospital waiting rooms- waiting for you to notice
that Love is you.
Love is the shape of your outline.
You, Lover, with or without a Lover. — 1st of August, '26