My name means 'wish' in Kurdish and though I was born in Sweden my parents are from Kurdistan. They left because of the violence and we moved here from Sweden six years ago. I had to learn English from scratch. I went to school and everyone stared back, thinking I was stupid. Some people found me a burden if I tried to explain my past. My close friends understand what happened in Kurdistan.

No one can be happy when they don't understand a language, but it did push me. I read books, so many books, starting with children's literature, to JK Rowling, Jane Austen and my favourite, 1984.

My diary makes me happy. I've been keeping notes, scraps and other bits since I was seven, and when I was 10 it changed from Swedish to English. It's an easier language for me, a good language for expressing emotion. I try to write poems from my mother's perspective and it helps me understand Kurdistan. Her life is full of what you don't see on the news - our relatives, her family, were taken away and killed. 'That person is not around,' she'll say. My father tells stories of the Iraq-Iran war. I try to put everything down. I have to. I have this urge.

What will make me happy is keeping the Kurdish part of me alive. I remember it from a trip when I was seven, taking off my shoes, tiptoeing on hot concrete. I know I'll go back someday. It's part of who I am.