My name is Sonia Baraka. I am a Sophomore college student, a baker, a song writer, and a poet. I have always had stories in my head, ever since I could remember. My mother would take me to work with her, and I would sit there and tell her co-workers stories that I had made up in my mind.
I started writing when I was about 11 years old. It was mainly for school; however, when I started taking creative writing, I fell in love with the process. There is something calming about making up a story and creating a world that helps you escape the one you are in. School was a place I had to be and a place I always wanted to be in. My initial handwritten stories were inspired by my sense of alienation. The process of seeing my handwritten mistakes, be they missing a word or confusing the characters, made me want to do it for as long as I could. The stories I told my sister became a comfort blanket because, while some things I considered scary were easily stripped away, my writing was something only I could do. It was and is one of my greatest gifts.
Writing didn’t take much for me at first; I just had to be completely alone with my feelings and let them fester for a few hours, before I would be able to write. Now it is no longer as easy. Like anything you try in life, at first it is exciting and you want to do it every day, but as time passes, the thing you enjoyed (writing) becomes harder and harder to do. Maybe because life got in the way or I was too scared that it wasn’t good enough. I nearly gave up on wiring until I realized that my writing does not have to be one thing.
I enjoy the stories I write. But they became a chore. And no matter how much your parents drill into you that chores are good, there is always that one chore you are more than willing to pass along. But I wasn’t ready to let go of that dream; I wasn’t ready to pass it along, so I started writing songs. Looking back, my songs were a different version of my stories; the songs were condensed into fewer lines, which made it so easy that feeling them wouldn’t hurt you as much.
Slowly, I came back to writing, where I found that songs and poetry can go hand in hand. Songs are condensed stories; poetry is the same thing but without any added instruments. I started wringing out poems almost every day; I would time myself, and somehow I thrived under the pressure of having a fully constructed piece of writing in 10–20 minutes. It gave me a chance to continue my stories, but in particular, My book, “Pretty smiles hide the biggest lies.”
I did not know what I meant by that title, but I was almost done with the book.
Often in life, we trust people. Especially when you are young, trust comes easily. It is a pre-existing attachment. Parents have to “teach stranger danger,” otherwise kids would consider anyone a friend and, naively, no one a foe. I wish the teaching of “stranger danger” was still taught. Because not everyone is a friend, not everyone is on your side, and not everyone is who they present themselves to be or who they are presented by a third party. At every stage in life, the stranger becomes someone new; it might be someone you have known for years.
I wrote this book out of hurt; I was angry with some “friends” that I had in my life. While those feelings marinated, they created “Pretty smiles hide the biggest lies.” The book is about four girls, bound by their secrets, who tell the truth and confess to their mistakes. Four girls who have a bright future ahead. They are who they present themselves to be. They happen to be caught up in a murder and a tangle of secrets that are slowly suffocating them.
