Anthology of Loss

I have always been a pessimistic person, in the disguise of an optimistic person. I don’t know why I’ve been hiding. Maybe I was afraid of life, thinking that the bad wouldn’t leave my side if I didn’t think about the good. But I have also always been a faithful person. Someone who never lets go, whether good or bad.

​That’s why I haven’t forgotten what I’ve lost, either. And again, this is why I remember what I’ve lost more than what I’ve gained—in the past or in the present, my old job, my ex-lover, my old home, my old self.

And that is why I was drawn to these stories not only because they remind me of my losses, but they also contain different aspects of losing. Therefore, I hope that these writings in the Anthology of Loss, or rather these losses, will remind you of your own losses too, in hopes of sharing their weight. The stories are:

In A Letter to the Sender’s Address by Rita Safari, we share the loss of visibility in the eyes of the lover, poetically capturing the quiet erasure of identity hidden beneath a chador.

In Call Me Back to Who I Am by Halima Rasooli, we share the loss of our old self, trying to find it relentlessly; an awakening from the heavy weight of emotional stagnation.

In Endless Waiting by Abdullah Akbari, we share the loss of a loved one that where there is no finality, mapping the painful purgatory of ambiguous grief along the smuggling routes to Iran.

In In My Mind’s Room by Atefa Qorbani, we share the loss of a family, told through the eyes of a person spending the day under bombing, cleverly trapping the reader in the room of the narrator’s own memory.

In My Moon by Pariya Ara, we share the loss of a child, where the loss is spoken through a hospital window to the beautiful and unreachable moon, capturing a mother’s isolation.

In not anymore by Coty Danos MinoMushkiikiikwe, we share the loss of trust, safety and self-worth through three poems, with each one losing another layer of an illusion, until the self is reclaimed.

In One Day by Faezeh Jafari, we share the sequential losses of a surrogate mother, a father, and a brother, as well as losing ourselves with each loss, brilliantly compressing a lifetime into a single 24-hour cycle.

In Shadow of the Clock by Madeha Ahmadi, we share the loss of dreams and self, lost to time, staged perfectly in a vast, empty desert where human identity becomes a fleeting mirage.

In Six Eyes, Six Hands, Six Feet by Samira Sarwari, we share the terrifying loss of bodily autonomy and the self, as a young protester’s brutal confinement is captured through a dissociation.

In Sunday’s Best Clothes by Linda Chunda, we share the loss of a mother, while navigating the memories of her, trying to honor her presence through a careful, loving ritual of wearing a cherished white shirt, blue pleated skirt, socks, and black shoes.

In The Last Hydrangea by Soodabeh Sameh, we share the loss of a dear friend to a violent murder; a story told so poetically that fragile traces of hope are still left struggling to stay alive.

In The Mask of the Evening Smile (Birthday) by Rostand Bondo, we share the loss of youth and time, fading ever so slowly, reminding us that every passing year feels “less like a celebration and more like standing beside a river.”

In The pain of losing a father by Muska Azizi, we share the loss of a father and, with that, the poignant loss of our protector, watching Raha navigate the devastating transformation of her family’s home in Kabul.

In The Weight of Many Years by Soodabeh Sameh, we share the loss of a life as the narrator knows it, through the loss of education and agency, caught between a mother’s past sacrifices and the haunting screams of shop mannequins.