Sep is a queer artist and hairdresser based in East London, born in Iran to an Iranian father and Egyptian mother. Half his family escaped during the revolution when he was five, moving through Pakistan before being resettled in New Zealand via the UN.
I started writing about grief when my mum passed away. It was a very difficult journey.
And when my dad passed I wasn’t with him
we had left Iran, and he stayed behind.
Then we went to New Zealand as refugees.
It was a hard lonely journey.
Sometimes people stay in their land because they belong to it.
My mum was from Egypt. My dad was from Iran. And me I’ve always felt Queer, free-spirited, moving from a young age.
From Pakistan to New Zealand, then Sydney, now the UK… always searching for something that feels like home.
Writing became my quiet kind of therapy, especially when I was seeing a grief therapist . It gave me a place for everything that didn’t have a home.
I wanted people to feel it grief, love, joy, pain. All of it. Because it feels like people don’t really go there anymore don’t let themselves sit inside those emotions.
I wanted to give something back… the humanity our loved ones leave with us when they’re gone.
Especially now with everything happening in the world, it feels like human life isn’t always valued. But we are so strong. We are so deeply loved even when it doesn’t feel like it.
Sometimes I feel alone in seeing it this way. Still, I try to share love anyway. I realise as I get older that not everyone moves through the world with the same depth… the same soul.
But life—life and even what comes after it—means everything when you are truly living.
Feeling it. The pain, the joy, all of it.
And we shouldn’t give up .
Not for our parents.
Not for our grandparents.
Not for the future of our children.
Albizia julibrissin (gul-i Abrisham) // Nature of Time - A Mother’s Love
Time does not measure a mother
It bends around her
There is no one like your mum
No mirror like her gaze
No shelter like the space she holds
Even when distance pretends to exist .
I left when I was young
Not away from you
But through you
Through the courage you planted
So I could stand without leaning
Independence is a branch
But LOVE is the root .
Being far carried a quiet ache
a gravity in the chest.
Yet you came to me in sleep
soft but unmistakable.
I felt what you carried.
I still do.
I felt your pain.
I still feel it.
If pain were transferable
I would take it
without hesitation in every form it arrived.
you made me.
My strength
My gentleness.
Nothing takes that.
Now you’re with dad
Lighter
Beyond weight reincarnated
I circle you
like a butterfly that never lands .
Here everything is one.
Here I am still your child.
Rocking.
Crying like a baby
in a body that is supposed to be grown.
Without you two
I am an orphan.
Even with years in my bones.
Even with my own name on the door.
Gold trembling in the dark
your shoulders lit
like gold leaf .
Pink threads hanging from branches
like nerves the sky forgot to hide.
I miss the back up.
( I miss you )
The wall behind my spine.
The certainty that nothing could end me
while you were still here.
Praying at your feet
On arrival.
Mud does not shame you.
Water holds your reflection
like it understands
reincarnation is never clean.
Your voice txt healed me.
Just the way you said my name.
Now the wind says it differently.
Now the dark carries it further.
Birds become pure being
chanting your name into the sky
I am an orphan in this lifetime.
But you two
are sequins in the soil
light pressed into earth,
already stepping
into another beginning.
And I am still here,
rocking,
aching,
waiting for the lifetime
where I find you again
and the mud does not mean goodbye.
metallic green
appears again
not asking permission
—
māmān joon bābā Jān
the word breaks
differently now
—
tree holding ethereal light
like a secret
water keeping two skies
—
metallic green
not leaf
not paint
something closer
to mercy
—
I look for an ending
the forest refuses
—
roots moving
in the dark
carrying news
from somewhere unseen
—
Mādar ( Mother )
no longer in body
more like a free traveler
more like breath
passing through branches
jāye shomā sabz
your place is green ( wish you were here )
—
metallic green
the colour that remains
after everything else
steps aside
—
Paradise exists
somewhere behind the visible
I feel it
in the bark
in the water
in the silence
—
nothing answers
yet nothing is gone
—
metallic green
still speaking
Credits
Artist : Sepehr Badiei @badieisepehr
Photographer : Charlie Tallott @charlie_tallott
Models : Sven Ironside @sven.ironside
DAFNI KRAZOUDI @dafnikrazoudi
Clothing : Maximilian Raynor @maximilianraynor , SEBASTIEN KWOK @sebastienkwok , Shannen Maria samuel @shannenmariasamuel
Boots : Natacha Marro @natachamarro
Make up : Kevin Cordo @kevin.cordo
Retouched : Elizabeth Derby and @helen_bykova_retoucher @studioandrews
Special thanks to @aportugueseloveaffair
@medbriordan @shannenmariasamuel , Elizabeth Derby & Dave Andrews