Noorie is my second book, and even as I write that sentence, it feels both surreal and grounding. Surreal, because there was a time when I only wrote for myself, quietly, without imagining that my words would ever travel beyond my notebooks. Grounding, because despite this being my second published work, I am still very much learning as I go. I do not feel like someone who has arrived anywhere definitive. If anything, I feel more aware of how much there is to understand—about language, about people, about myself.
I have been writing for over a decade now. What began as scattered diary entries and unfinished poems slowly turned into something steadier. Writing was never a grand ambition for me in the beginning; it was a necessity. I wrote because I did not know how else to carry what I felt. Over time, the practice became discipline, and the discipline became identity. But Noorie, in particular, has been quietly forming for nearly seven years. It did not arrive all at once. It gathered itself slowly, piece by piece, season by season.
Some of the poems in this collection were written in moments I did not fully understand back then. I wrote them in confusion, in longing, in quiet heartbreak, or in fleeting joy that I could not name. At the time, I was only trying to survive those feelings. I was not thinking about structure or theme or cohesion. I was simply reaching for something steady. Looking back now, I can see how those early pieces held questions I would spend years trying to answer. They carry the innocence and uncertainty of who I was.
Other poems came much later, when I had learned to sit with my feelings a little longer. Growth, for me, did not look like becoming stronger or louder. It looked like becoming more patient. It looked like allowing myself to feel without rushing to fix or define the experience. The later poems in Noorie reflect that shift. There is still vulnerability in them, but there is also a certain quiet acceptance. They do not beg to be understood; they simply exist.
Together, these poems hold time in ways I did not plan, but slowly came to recognize. When I arranged them, I began to see patterns—recurring images, familiar metaphors, questions that kept resurfacing in different forms. Change is not always dramatic. Sometimes it is only visible when you place your past and present side by side. Noorie became that space for me: a place where the person I was and the person I am now could sit together without judgment.
Writing has always been the one place I return to when I cannot make sense of what I feel. I am often unable to express things in the moment. Conversations move too quickly. Emotions feel too layered. By the time I find the right words, the moment has passed. So I take my time. I step away. I let the feeling settle, and then I write. In that slowness, something honest emerges. Over the years, this habit of returning to words has become my refuge, my coping mechanism, and the most truthful way I know how to exist.
There is a quiet kind of courage in admitting that you are still learning. With this book, I am not presenting myself as someone who has mastered her craft or solved her own questions. I am presenting a body of work that grew alongside me. Noorie is imperfect. Some poems are raw around the edges. Some are softer, more restrained. But together, they reflect a journey that feels real to me.
This book is not a collection of perfect poems. It is a collection of honest ones. And that honesty is what makes it so close to my heart. Each piece carries a fragment of who I was at a particular moment—uncertain, hopeful, grieving, healing. To publish them is to allow those versions of myself to be seen. That vulnerability is both frightening and freeing.
If readers find themselves in these pages, I hope it is not because the poems offer answers. I hope it is because they offer recognition. We are all, in our own ways, learning as we go. We all have feelings we do not fully understand until years later. We all need a place to return to when the world feels too loud or too fast. For me, that place has always been writing.
Noorie is a reflection of time, change, and growth. It is a reminder that becoming is not a straight line. It is a quiet unfolding. And I am still unfolding.
