Mahnaz Badihian, "You are shot there, and I die here"

Mahnaz Badihian is a poet, painter, and translator whose work reflects ideas of immigrants and exiles, women’s struggles, poverty, and the fight for justice and love. An award-winning poet and author of two poetry collections, The Raven of Isfahan and her most recent, Ask the Wind, She also edits the literary magazine, MahMag.org, and translated (with Jack Hirschman), Spalding Arise, a book about the 2009 uprising in Iran. For the reading to mark the fourth anniversary of the Woman, Life, Freedom uprising in Iran, held at The Starry Plough Pub in Berkeley, CA, she read part of her poem in Farsi and then fully in English titled “You are shot there but I died here” capturing the anguish of Iran’s diaspora as they get news of the regime’s massacre of protesters in the early 2026 uprising. The text of the poem is shared below, with her permission. How little distance there is between a gunshot and death. A bullet recognizes no border. It crosses the streets of Iran, slips through walls and oceans, and comes to rest in the heart of exile. You fall to the earth, and I, still standing, buried beside you. You spill blood, and here, Air abandons my lungs. Each day We die again through headlines, through photographs that bury themselves beneath our skin. Morning finds us walking like the half-dead, waiting for a voice, a hand, someone to ask: Are you still alive? No mother was created for this many coffins. We burned with you inside the fire, yet refused the mercy of ash. Out of soil We forced wings to grow. Out of death We carried the name of Iran through our ruined mouths. Hand in hand, wounded, unarmed, armed only with love and rage, We will lift Iran once more from beneath the rubble. You are shot there, And I die here.