strand

Writer Zarah Hashim discusses lust, love and heartbreak in this prose piece accompanied by a poem.

While our pricey seminars become places of roaring anti-capitalist sentiments, we go back to our over-priced London houses/flats/student accommodations and spasmodically embrace our phones - a device harbouring capitalist vices. Micro-trends, endless advertisements, and dystopian feeds that broadcast genocide and celebrity or influencer opulence simultaneously. 

All these terms: baby, child, preteen, teenager, adult – what do they do for our souls? The reason 19 feels liminal, almost like it doesn't exist is because, just like 17, we are waiting for the next stage. 

I went to my first home today, it’s too far to walk and my mother would never take me,  she said it made her cry.  I think I wanted to cry about something like that.

I wrote in my diary in April 2024: I like spring the most because the sunlight takes you by surprise.

‘I’m after the painter of memories.’ Aidan turns up the call volume; the voice sounds distant. 

All year, we wait for that perfect time again: summer. The season of tan lines, iced lattes, and late-night memories with our friends.

Last summer, I realised I was trans. When I go back to the sea I love and the neighbourhood I don’t, it’ll be a bit harder to breathe but it’s only for a little longer. I have learned to be comfortable in my changing and the time it will take.

More often than not, I am wrong. I am constantly (if unintentionally) lying. After twenty minutes convincing my poor interlocutor that I, in fact, must be right, a simple Google search proves me to be unequivocally incorrect. 

Cultural spaces in South London are fading away, only to be succeeded by construction that never seems to benefit local residents.