Sal

A few months ago, I was on a tram when I met an Afghan woman speaking Persian. Since Persian is my first language, I joined her conversation. She shared her hope that one day Afghan women will be able to protest against the Taliban, just as women in Iran have done.

Today, Afghan women are showing incredible courage by standing up against policies that try to control their bodies and their lives. These policies, introduced since 2021, have included restrictions such as revoking access to education and limiting women’s presence in public spaces.

Meanwhile, I've personally experienced fainting and feeling like I was dying under police pressure.

So why can't you just admit Donald Trump sucks and the Islamic regime sucks too? Why are you trying to justify them because you just hate Trump :)))

Azizam,

I got your message, and you’re not getting mine. Instead, you were seeing buildings demolished and windows break. You saw different types of death: the death of people and places by everyone, and now you look like somebody who has died when I checked your Telegram. When will you come back to tell me the worst and most horrible stories I have ever heard while laughing?

If the internet comes back, I will stay silent and listen to you, and when you ask me, “How was it with me?” I'll tell you I write every day, crying, shaking my feet in the bathroom, and trying to live. Living, we love living? I’m not resisting; I never have. Crisis has always been in the way, and I’m floating on the water and watching the waves.

I miss the sea where you were dancing next to it, and I was sleeping on it. And you must have smoked when the regime killed all of us and our places. Our youth smoked and went up to the sky and came back as a weapon of happiness, of death, of our murder, and sadness for places.

I don’t want to cry in my 50s and feel guilty about why I didn’t do anything when I see people my age , I’m not sure we’re even going to be 34 one day, Maybe we'll be extinct in 10 years and it's not bitter, We practiced death moments several times; that's why living every day is just a new unusual event.

Stay safe and alive.

With kindness.

It’s hard to explain how one part of me is still living every day in Iran, suffering, angry. I remember that anger, that urge to scream: asking why can’t I just live? And another part of me , just trying to swim and sleep on the water.

Is it like The Double Life of Veronika? (The music was beautiful) sometimes I feel like the music of my own life as heavy and strange as it is might be even more real.

Last night, we were lying on the couch, looking at each other, with soft romantic music playing. We said, "I love you," and even now, every time I hear it, my heart pauses, like, "Wait, did I really hear that?" Why aren't those dark thoughts and feelings present when I'm next to him? When I was looking into his eyes, I was thinking, "How did I write 'June 5' for the deadline?" Deadline to what? An old friend said there is no love without the possibility of getting hurt, and I don't want more pain in life. Evidence shows he makes me happy, and Freud said some pain is enjoyable..

When you’ve lived in instability, relying only on your inner world isn’t a choice. So the idea that maybe you can trust something outside of yourself like someone else still feels unreal to me like Wait, I'm the unstable one here:))) Every time I think about it, I wonder: is it actually possible to let external reasons make you happy?

loneliness squeezes the heart

with two hands from inside

the head whispers: resist "living"

birdsong in the morning

the color of the sky

desperately walking through

this scene without crying

silence everywhere

ashamed if you disrupt it

by not living

then screaming every day

poor my breath

if you hear the sound: don't be afraid

air will hug you and I won't.

don't ask me what will happen next

I see death

In these moments, I’m reminded of all those who have been killed this year by the Islamic Republic. Eventually, light prevails over darkness. May this year bring a free Iran for us, and may we celebrate the next Nowruz with our loved ones.

Now I understand why Sarah Hegazi committed suicide in Canada. Why was I angry at her? Stupid me-I didn't know. You carry the wish for a free home everywhere.

I wish I'd never known what Islam is. I can't even describe how much I hate it. Can I escape to another planet?

I wish I didn't exist and hadn't seen so much pain. Breathing is hard. My future self, if you read this, you couldn't breathe either-and it's not fair. Nothing is supposed to be fair.