He once told me he had lost the negatives.  One day before I leave, he took some photos of me, in the central part of Tehran, Meydoon Vali-Asr, Enghelab. It was a s strange day, I had so many mixed feelings; excitement, fear, feeling an absence.

He found the negatives. I am holding my breath while looking at them. This is not me. I left me that day on that grey bench. As I am writing, I remember my bus ride on the way back home.  Looking out the window, passing by the sad old  trees of Vali-Asr, looking at their reflection on the window, the uncertainties, the grief.

Those trees are far and gone, this poetic image is only an imagination.

Photo by Ardalan Zandyavari