Just four days after her mother died in November 2024, Year 12 student Azka Ishfaq was back at Beverly Hills Girls High School on Bidjigal land and picking up her HSC studies.

It was Azka’s birthday and her friends organised a special morning tea to celebrate amidst the sadness.

“My mother passed on a Sunday and I came back to school on a Thursday. I found it easy to be at school surrounded by people I knew cared for me,” she said.

“When everything was chaotic it was so meaningful. My teachers were so great in creating this support system throughout the year and my friends were incredible.”

As her mother, Bushra, became seriously ill with a lung condition, Azka found it difficult to talk about and “decided to write my emotions into poems”.

The suite of poems, called 'the day the colours went missing' follows the persona losing someone as she moves through different rooms, each one a different colour and emotion. Red is anger, green is regret, for example.

Written in the rhythm of Dr Seuss to appeal to teenagers, Azka said: “People were expecting a breakdown, as would be normal for anyone, but I felt my writing was really helping me.

"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.

“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.”

Just as Azka was finishing her HSC exams in November, she was contacted by US-based Atmosphere Press with news it would publish 'the day the colours went missing' in early 2026.

From ‘grey – the vanishing’

the yellow had vanished! it bolted, it flew.

took my gumboots, my sunhat, my lemony shoe.

the daffodils drooped into ghostlier whites,

and my curtains hung dull in the absence of light.

green had been gutted from every last tree.

the apples looked pale. the world didn’t breathe.

and mum’s garden, her garden!  the one she had grown,

was grey now. and wilting. and wildly unknown.

Ambassador for public education

Azka’s ode to her mother was written as she was studying an intense HSC schedule of English Extension 2, English Extension 1, English Advanced, Mathematics Advanced, Physics and Visual Arts, with the aim of becoming a secondary English teacher. 

Her major work for English Extension 2 – the highest English course – was also poetry about grief through mythological figures. The creative work included comparing the persona of a daughter losing a mother to the rage of Demeter, the Greek goddess of the harvest, searching for her daughter, Persephone, abducted by Hades, the god of the underworld.

English Extension 1 teacher Candice Byrnes said Azka had simply shone through her HSC year, striving for academic excellence, a member of the Student Representative Council and active in student-led initiatives.

“Azka has become a beacon of inspiration and a symbol of strength and courage,” Ms Byrnes said.

“We are proud to have played a part in her journey and are incredibly privileged to say that while we have taught her much, Azka leaves us with a beautiful lesson in, and legacy of, resilience, courage and the triumph of the human spirit.”

Principal Maria Iemma said Azka was a proud ambassador for public education and embodied one of the school’s mottos to ‘Be Somebody’.

“At the most challenging time in her life, Azka was often at the vanguard of student-led initiatives aimed at enhancing the school community,” she said.

“Azka often spent her study periods communicating with her teachers, sharing stories of her mum, seeking extra support with her studies or working on leadership initiatives.”

Teachers are spiritual parents

Azka came to Australia from Pakistan when she was four and has a loving father, Muhammad, and brothers Moiz, 23, and Muhammad, 16, but no other family in Australia. She attended primary school at Hampden Park Public School in Lakemba and started writing poetry at Beverly Hills Girls High in Year 9.

Her dad wrote to Beverly Hills Girls High that he was “a very proud father”.

“I am very thankful to Beverly Hills Girls High School for the support and help in our difficult time. Teachers are spiritual parents and I am very satisfied that Azka’s spiritual parents are great and outstanding in every aspect of teaching.”

In a few weeks’ time Azka will learn of her university entry into English teaching, a career inspired by her teachers at Beverly Hills Girls High.

“My experience at Beverly Hills Girls High is a journey of discovering the power of community,” Azka said.

“I didn’t just receive an education here; I found my best friends and saw my potential reflected in the eyes of teachers I will forever look up to.

“Beverly Hills Girls may have taught me algebra and Shakespeare but more importantly, it taught me compassion, resilience, and the incredible impact of a supportive community.

“That is why I hope to become a teacher one day. The mark teachers leave isn’t just on our report cards; it’s in the people we are becoming.”

From ‘orange – the room of rage (once again)

i found the old room.

it was waiting, of course.

the room of rage,

but worse than before.

it pulsed in orange,

too bright to stare.

and every why i’d buried was suddenly there.

why her?

why then?

why not me instead?

why all the things i never said?

why the silence?

why the wait?

why do birthdays feel like fate?