When I left Iran, it was the middle of autumn, the second fall of my life that turned into ashes because of forbidden love. That fall feels so far away; was it 2012 or 2013? I remember it was forty-five days before the new year's day of 2015. On that day, I should have been drawing designs for Mr. Khayabani's class with rapids, or I would have been sitting in the German class on Khyachal Street. But neither the conservatory nor Goethe's German classes would change anything in my future. When the summer mathematics classes of the third year started, my lips tasted the sweetness of Hossein's lips, and I could not be tamed anymore. After that sweet summer, the pain of a lost love fell from the sky with the autumn leaves! I was so angry that I abandoned getting a mathematics diploma, despite everyone's hope that I would do great. What a terrible fall it was! Instead of going to school, we visited every clinic to find a cure for homosexuality.

What a terrible fall it was! On Hossein's birthday, I was so close to being hospitalized at Lavasani Hospital to undergo shock therapy treatment. I ran away from home many times until my family agreed to start a conversation about it. After that, the Cold War began between us and continued until the following fall when I left Iran. Ah... I was supposed to go to Norway, but fate kept me in Turkey and taught me life lessons. I repeatedly dreamed that I couldn't solve the equations during the exam and would wake up palpitating. Until I came to Canada. Because I didn't have a diploma, I had to take an entrance exam and go back to high school. I had seen this moment many times in my nightmares, but I said to myself, "This exam is not to question you; it is to measure your skills." And the result of this measurement was unique and unbelievable. I got thirty out of forty in math without preparation, and I got a D out of E in a language exam. They let me sit in 12th grade. Now I am just one step away from going to university.

Maybe if I were Canadian, I would have bought paints, pens, and rapids instead of a notebook and an office, and now I would be in a painting class. But I was born in a country where reading was my revenge for the irrationality of the brains that crushed my love and femininity. Now I have to pick up a pen to fight. That's why I will be a journalist.