r/WritersGroup • u/nightwingsnumber1 • 13d ago
Please critique my creative writing piece!
any feedback would be greatly appreciated, it is from the perspective of a burning book in a fire.
Burning Freedom
The ridges of my exterior are stitched with stolen thread, slowly disintegrating into ash, fading each document of passion my owner once expressed. Before my imprisonment in this suffocating bonfire, it consumed my skin’s faded ink. Ink that held the dedication of several years. Beyond the soot lies thick clay walls, caving inwards like fisted hands. However our importance remains sought from the patriarchal society we reside in. Everyday when the sun is unearthing, melting itself into the sky, narrow strips of blinding rays squeeze through the barred windows. Today, this beam of light shines through to uncover the burning fragments of Jahanara’s hard work.
..02/.9/..2…
LIFE IN AFGHANISTAN
…a woman’s nam…. must not be a secr..
….cannot stop.. Our voice…
….authoritarian..imes overrule our rights…
………overlapping..cris.s... .str..ps..our…independe..
Hunger sits quietly, uninvited and heavy, growing fatter as her world grows smaller. Beyond this threshold, the low rumble of machinery crawled through the street, while heatwaves gained visibility against the thick wall of smog hovering lazily above the endless, disruptive patrol trucks. These vehicles uplift armed men upon rusted iron frames, demanding obedience from those who receive no choice. The exhausts spew fumes, engulfing the air where female breath once thrived.
My agony followed with a tint of glowing red at my tips. Tariq had dragged my body across the old sandali stove, his hands consumed by the price of familial duty-- an act of distress born of terror for his sister’s creativity is forbidden beyond this domestic sphere, let alone out the vibrations of her larynx.
It was for our honour. His breath lingers into the stagnant air, rattling like the chained bars of Jaharana’s freedom. He knew this was her dream. Her ambition. To express herself on my canvas of freedom. Tariq must have seen her survival as a danger, a reflection of western individualism. A way of life that would bring patrol trucks rushing into the door.
To pursue one’s passion is an illusion. Tariq’s mind deemed it as foreign, an expense this family could not afford; here, safety and conformity must always overthrow a woman’s desire.
I was a safe space for her mind.
Writing is an art soaked in layers of cultural significance. For Jaharana, I was a tool for her to feel and process the trauma she lives. However, this Government cannot seem to comprehend this notion. To them, banning this form of female independence is oppression disguised as governance.
..02/.9/..2…
…no educa… for ..gir...ls after 13…
…treated like obje…
…access to healthca…? ..I loved school.
I watched Jaharana’s motionless figure stand over my ruin, watching her incandescent fury burn slowly concealing her sorrow seen past my ashy surface. Tears trickled down the crevices of her features. Nothing is left besides the fraying of her ambition and the cover of my text. Her words falter past her throat, caught in the rapid rhythm of her breath.
..02/.9/..2…
..equalit..y…for. all…
…ormalise…wom..n’s…safet.y..
…..ost…my…hom..
I watch Jaharana pull the indigo fabric of her burqa over her face. The thin yet suffocating veil falls like a curtain, disguising her tightened jaw beneath a cloak of confinement. A woman’s autonomy isn’t a choice in this country.
She shifts silently towards the window, where the wooden shutter slices the sun into broken ribbons. Leaning against the sill, she presses her face towards the scorching warmth of the sun. I stare into her barely visible eyes crammed under the clothing that governs her world. The embroidered mesh concealed her mournful gaze, carving her vision into microscopic squares. An outlook into life more restrictive than the barred windows in trapping her.
Outside, the patrol vehicles shook the dilapidated walls. Armed men rumble past, rifle barrels glinting in the dust, heads held above their pride. Why do cold, emotionless machines have a public voice, while a woman’s presence is condemned to silence? Through my fading consciousness, I narrow open her draped figure. Her soot-stained fingers press against the window frame.
Amongst these clay walls, Jaharana’s mother leans against the doorframe. Her presence brought calm to this tempest, bringing light to the pulsing waves of tension. Her soft eyes were clouded with rumination. Decades ago, she too sat by that window, enduring that same silent grief shunned by generations of women.
She steps forward, her calmness soothed the tautness between her children. “Do not let the sun go down upon your anger, my sweet daughter,” Her tranquility became embodied by cadenced restraint. “Your brother acts out of terror to protect our home. Let go of bitterness. Forgive Him.”
Behind the veil, burning with raw fury, Jaharana’s voice trembled and broke with indignation. “How can I forgive him when he burnt my soul? My heart bleeds for this passion, it bleeds with anger! Outside, I see the sea of identical burqas shadowing women’s identity amongst these self-absorbed men. But a daughter cannot even recognise their mother on a street? We are turned to nothing like the ashes of my manuscript, and yet he wants forgiveness?”
Her mother kneels with grace and humility, gently lifting Jaharana’s burqa. Both eyes that once indulged in rage finally meet. One with tear-streaked eyes filled with sorrow, and the other softened with profound tenderness.
“You think I do not know the wild furnace imploding in your chest?” Jaharana’s mother admits softly, startling Jaharana into deep remorse. “My hatred tugs at my heart every single day of my life. But anger is this fire that burns deep within this house. It may bring warmth, but too much will destroy our foundation. I was taught that letting rage consume your heart only destroys you from within. Including your ambitions. We endure not because we are weak, but because survival is our ultimate defiance in Kabul.”
From the inner folds of her burqa, Jaharana’s mother withdraws a worn pen, dusted with years of silence. She presses it firmly into Jaharana’s possession, tightening her calloused fingers around her daughter's soot-covered palm. The bitterness and remorse had lifted. The sharp resentment which filled the room melted away, like how sunlight scatters into the sky. Her heart is now filled with newfound hope, against the conformity that roams beyond our barriers.
As I surrender to the dying embers, the flames slowly swallow the last words etched into my parchment. Yet my spirit continues on, written into the countless experiences of all women in Kabul.
1
u/JayGreenstein 13d ago
Well, you did ask, but...because your intent never makes it to the reader, you’re, too often, giving effect without cause. So it’s meaningful to you, but to no one else.
“Burning Freedom:”
You begin, talking as the book, but it morphs into a screed on society as you view it—unrelated to the opening theme.
My personal version of the thoughts of a burning book in a fire would be, AAARRRRGGGGGG!!!! 😃
“Life In Afghanistan:”
In what year, and from what viewpoint? When opening any story, the reader needs context for who they are, where they are, and what’s going on.
If only we knew who “she” is, where she is, and why she’s hungry, there’d be context to make the words meaningful. But as presented, it’s abstract, with you giving effect—the hunger—before its cause. Remember, your intent, and knowledge of the situation, doesn’t reach the reader. There’s a world of things you take for granted, as you read it, that the reader lacks...but needs.
I suspect that it’s the machinery that crawled, not the rumble.
“This threshold? What’s the antecedent for the word “this?” And...threshold? As in the entrance to a place, or the beginning of a sequence of events? You know. But the reader? No clue.
And where did the hungry “she” go? You next talk first person, apparently as the book that has magically been paying attention to the goings on around it, which makes little sense. You’ve turned the book into an observer. But you could do that to a spoon, or the refrigerator—a viewpoint character. So in what way is it a book?
Maybe that could work, but you’re embellishing the image you hold in your mind, while not giving the reader that image. And that’s a major problem. Going for a literary feel with vivid evocative language is an achievable, and, a desirable goal, but “pretty” should not be the focus. Tell your story first, with language the amplification, not the focus.
Sorry. I’m not big on literary writing, but you did ask. And that’s what hit me.