The Last Kisses; The Desire to Leave, a Farewell from Bushehr to Exile, and Weaving Oneself
This text is not about death. She is alive, and these words are only a description of her inner state — a heart that prefers leaving over staying. This “leaving” is not about abandoning; it is about choosing distance, about loosening the ties.
There is a secret in leaving that we, the ones who stay, cannot understand.
Mother is tired now; her heart no longer wishes to remain.
We sit here with tears in our eyes, imagining that leaving must be bitter, dark.
But perhaps for her, it carries a sweetness we cannot taste.
Every step seems to embrace the path itself.
The dust of these days recalls her footprints in the yard,
and slowly, she is moving closer to her own secret.
We, the ones who remain, drown in our fear —
a fear without a name, a fear of being left behind.
We want to hold her hand and whisper, “Stay, don’t go, we are still here.”
Yet deep inside, another voice says:
maybe she has the right. Maybe when one grows so tired, staying itself becomes a burden.
Perhaps leaving is a breeze after years of burning heat,
a gentle wind on her weary face.
She is alive, but she loves the thought of leaving.
After her illness began, she would whisper an old verse:
The world made me poor,
Once I was gold, now I am rusted iron.
No new clothes to wear,
Only old garments, my pride in gatherings.
In exile, sick and far from her land, she sometimes sighed and said:
My exile is no light load,
No one suffers like me.
Even if I drink the honey of exile,
It is not equal to being a beggar in my homeland.
We can only watch and hold our tears,
imagining that her wish to leave means she no longer cares.
But it is not betrayal; it is not anger.
It is simply weariness, gently pulling her toward release.
And so, she begins to feel the kisses of the road.
The dust of the home will forever remember her steps.
When she set her mind to leaving, with the same shoru she once sang,
I reached the outskirts of Choghadak,
the place we had walked together so many times,
the soil where our shadows stretched long in the sunset.
I sat by the roadside,
looked down the path she had taken,
placed my hand on my knee,
and wept bitterly —
a weeping no one else knew,
a weeping that carried the sorrow of years.
Yet she continued on…
Yes, there is a secret in leaving that staying can never know.
Even the sorrow of departure can be sweet,
when the path itself kisses with longing,
and the dust remembers her footsteps forever.
Naser Kamali
London, 2025
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