Azka was told not to write about her mum’s death for her HSC. So she wrote a book instead

2 hours ago 2

there was mum in the kitchen, alive and still bright,
sipping her tea in the soft yellow light.
there was me, not crying. just brushing her hair.
there was a world where she’d always be there

***

When Azka Ishfaq’s mother died suddenly at the end of year 11 she was warned not to turn her English Extension 2 major work into a therapeutic piece. Make it more substantial, she was advised; more intellectual.

Azka Ishfaq, a year 12 graduate of Beverly Hills Girls High School, hopes to be an English secondary teacher.

But bereavement was all the young woman who had just lost her world could think about.

“When my mum passed, I feel like that was the only thing I wanted to write about. It was weird for me to even think about writing anything different,” she said.

Most students are advised against turning personal trauma into their major work, said Beverly Hills Girls High School English teacher Candice Byrne.

“Sometimes [therapeutic] writing can steer students into the emotion and out of the craft of writing,” Byrne said.

But Azka is not most students. Unbeknown to her teachers, she listened to their advice, but quietly worked on a separate collection of poems dedicated to her mother.

“I was writing these poems as a way to understand what I was feeling,” she said.

***

i ran to the table. i reached for the cup.
i begged her to see me. i begged time to stop.
she looked up and smiled, so gently, so near.
but her eyes were like glass, and they didn’t hold tears.

***

At the end of her HSC she presented the poems to her teachers with a humble admission: they were being turned into a book. Her deeply personal poems will be published by Atmosphere Press, an American publisher that assists self-publishing authors, next year.

Byrne said Azka’s poems, while not her major work, were “some of the most beautiful words you will ever read”, and made her “ugly face cry” twice.

“This is just beauty. There aren’t words that can capture it,” Byrne said.

Azka Ishfaq pictured with her late mother, Bushra. Azka said her mum was kind. “Everywhere she went, people loved her,” said Azka.

“She has such a maturity and a grace and an eloquence to her writing, the emotions shine through her crafting.”

Azka’s major work – a separate collection of poems – also focused on grief, through Greek mythical illusions. Her teachers described it as “fantastic”.

But her private poem suite, titled “the day the colours went missing”, was created not for HSC markers but to make a mark.

“My biggest hope was to create something that could help a young person, or anyone really, see their own complicated emotions reflected on the page and feel a little less alone,” Azka said.

“I wanted to explore grief, not as a single adult feeling but as this fragmented, overwhelming thing that can often trap us in the perspective of our younger selves. It’s about all the colours of feeling that go missing after a loss, and the long, non-linear journey to find them again, even if they never look quite the same.”

***

i almost let maybe replace what was real.
but something inside me began to unfreeze,
a shiver that whispered, “she’s gone.”
not “might be.” not “please.”
so i turned from the table. i turned from the gold.
i turned toward the hallway that suddenly felt cold.
and as i stepped out, the room gave a sigh,
a quiet “what if” in a voice that won’t die.

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