collections 5:18

Dear Dad,

Why did you have to die? I really need you right now. I know it's been ten years, but I need you so much that I can't even breathe on some nights. It isn't fair that you left me when I was a kid... I didn't understand what it meant then and I don't understand what it means now. I just know that I need you. I can't take everything by myself and not a day goes by that I don't wish you were here to tell me everything would be okay- to support me in my goals and dreams, patting me on the shoulder the way you used to do and let me know that I can depend on you. I can't depend on you though- because you left me, and it's just not fucking fair. I can't keep swallowing this lump in my throat that's choking the oxygen from me... I can't keep digging into empty pockets and finding nothing but butterflies. Even butterflies migrate with their families, but since you left I barely have a family to depend on. I have a mother who works her ass off just to survive on her own and my brothers live aimlessly, with no hope to make much for the future. Weren't you supposed to invest in me? I don't want to cry alone anymore. I don't want to feel a part of myself die each time I fail you, because you aren't here to tell me to try again. I don't want to do any of this shit anymore. I want to be with you. I want you to hold me like you did when I was a little kid, but the closest I'll ever get is listening to my Iranian friends talk about their dads and try to connect all the dots that I've forgotten. I'm tired of this pain, this ache, this loneliness that I have to live with- I'm tired of my family being so far away while I stay in this epic city all by myself. I'm tired of living some nights, knowing that I have to take care of all my problems by myself. Was it worth it? Was it worth it to die the way you did? To give your life for my nieces and nephews in Iran, trying to get them to this country? Were they more important than me? Your oldest son? My mother and brothers didn't know that the tenth anniversary of your death had come, but I knew. I was counting the days, just as I've counted the days since you've been gone. Tomorrow I'll choke down these feelings for another day and I'll pretend like I don't want to cry anymore, just like I've done every day for the last ten years... but you were my best friend and my father and my hero. And now you're just a ghost and I'm still a boy who can't grow up because he never learned a goddamn thing that he didn't have to teach himself. I had to figure out where to go after high school on my own and what to do. I had to figure out how to take out a loan to pay for it and how to manage my time so I can make the most of my education. I had to figure out how to network and how to make the contacts necessary to succeed in my field and I'll have to figure out how to be successful in that field. I'll have to figure out what to say to a woman you love and how to raise your children and what retirees do for fun. I'll have to figure out how to be a man, because I'm just a fucking child- This is why I haven't grown or aged since I was thirteen. Because I've never been able to grow up without you.

I love you though. I always will. Please, help me... please.
Behnam

collections 5:17

I need to get in touch with my roots again. As I sit here, all I can think about is standing on an empty plain with the wind passing around me, picking up the grass as the cornfields sway around me, with a pack of cigarettes in my pocket and one dangling from my mouth, clinging only by the moisture of my lips. I need space to breathe- space that the city doesn't offer. I've spent years running- running from everything that I thought I didn't deserve. Like love- when you look back at my history, I've got a bad habit for getting into relationships and then abandoning them by setting dates for the future. "In two years, I'm leaving Varna to go to community college." "In two years, I'm leaving community college to go to Chicago." "In two years, I'm leaving Chicago for Japan or grad school or whatever." I don't even know where I'm going, but I feel like there's so much I have to do and I feel like I can only do it alone. Like I'm standing in that plain, watching the sun set into the cornfields like I had when this whole life thing began at eighteen. Words like, "I love you," used to quiver on my lips with every girl willing to hold my hand, but now it feels so scary to admit anything that isn't just, "fun" or "convenient." I'm hiding my depth, assuming there is any, because I'm not ready to explore it yet. I remember driving between those cornfields with something blaring over the radio, speeding up and slowing down at my convenience because there wasn't another car on the road for miles, but now I have no car and the road isn't as endless as it once was. The speed and direction has already been set because I don't have it in me to swerve off and try something new- I'm too committed to my debts, my education, and my career. I look at my past lovers and it's like, "Who was I to leave you behind?" Why do I feel the need to abandon everyone who cares enough about me to help me on my journey? There're so many girls out there with hurt feelings buried in their bosom and they treat me like I'm a casualty of war or something- being careful not to remind me of the past that they so blatently pretend to ignore. I understand that these were my mistakes and they were only my mistakes to make, but I'm not the only one bottling things up inside. My most recent ex, Erin, is someone I might consider a hero for not bottling a goddamn thing up. She isn't afraid to dig into me, pushing me beyond my barrier of safety- I almost regret leaving her because she still cuts right into the core, unlike those other girls I've abandoned. But even she will begin to treat me like just another gimp shipped back when she's found someone better to spend her efforts on. I'm still a wasted effort. I remember going to work and easing back, waiting for my shift to end with a pocket full of cash to do whatever I wanted with. Some of it would go to rent, some of it would go to bills, and some of it would go to thoughtful moments to my friends and lovers. I can't afford friends or lovers anymore- and looking now, I'm troubled that I don't have a usual "group" to hang out with. I'm stretching myself thin for no reason but to hide that depth. In the end though, I wonder if there'll be anything at all hidden within- or if it'll be as empty as I feel to this moment.

Things were so simpler then.

collections 5:16

I dreamt that he lived- my father. He had stolen the thrown of Iran and had called for my family to visit. So my mother and I went- she stayed in a hotel, but I chose to roam the streets where war was constant. My life in danger, some anti-Islamic Iranians took me into their hide out. They were all very hurt, injured, weak- but they took me in nonetheless. They warned me against visiting my father, the Shah, but I had to- so I went before I was summoned and there he sat on his small thrown, waiting for me in a small, dark room. He looked like my father, but he didn't speak like my father. He spoke like a man with nothing but blackness in his heart. When I turned my head for only a moment, he drew a large, crescent shaped knife from his black robe and attempted to stab me, but I fought him off with all the strength I had. It wasn't my father at all- merely a doppleganger in his form, taking advantage of my mother and I. I returned to the hotel quickly and warned her against it, but she didn't listen to me- she only cared that he lived and she wanted to be with him again. I was alone.