Endgame in Exile

## I Eleven, Tehran's burning heat— sleeve rolled high against the summer's weight, the Revolutionary Guard's fist finds my face like a question mark carved in flesh. A G3 rifle barrel cold against my cheek, the hammer clicks, a seed of fear in my chest. First lesson in the game: some moves are forced on you. ## II Sixteen, when militia boots thunder through the door for routine inspection, her smile hidden in chemistry pages between formulas I will never solve. I tear her photograph into snow, swallow winter whole, paper dissolving on my tongue like the prayers my mother whispers before dawn. Each fragment asks: Where do you plant what they uproot? ## III Seventeen, sketching battlefields in chalk dust, bishop seizes pawn, knight topples rook— this silent war drawn on blackboard squares. Until the principal's shadow crosses the board, makes us eat the chalk, piece by piece, dreams turned to powder in our mouths. In my country, even chess was forbidden. ## IV Twenty-two, at Islamic Azad University, playing Tehran's champion across sixty-four squares. My mother's voice echoes: "Be careful." Security arrives like checkmate, banishes us both, the king unmoved. Pieces abandoned in formation, prayers lost at a border checkpoint. ## V At departure gates, each passport stamp— a square crossed off the board. Chalk dust in my pockets, her photograph's winter cold on my tongue, the weight of unfinished games pressing sharp within my voice. ## VI This is the endgame: suspended between the country that expelled me and the one that does not yet know I still dream in Persian. In the space between what is lost and remains, I learn what every chess master knows: sometimes the only winning move is to begin a different game entirely.