Author Archives: m*

walking up and down cobblestones digging at my heels;
stopping to look through beautiful windows with no view.

my fingers are stained black from the ink in my pen, my darling pen which exploded on the plane from the air pressure drop, all these vertical miles above the ground. (we say miles out of written habit, but we think in kilometers, don’t we.) i say merci, teşekkür ederim, gracias and everything in between—everything but obrigado. oh obrigado, the elusive one, you will come, that i know; i have a few days to get to know you, to make you comfortable, to lure you in. we’ll make it in these hours. you’ll wait. i’ll see.

i would like to live differently in faraway lands. i would like to be someone else in unknown flags. [...] i would like, i should like… but there is always the sun when the sun shines and the night when the night arrives. there is always sorrow when sorrow pains us, and sleep when sleep lulls us. there is always what there is, and never what there should be, not because it’s better or worse, but because it’s different.

— pessoa

***

at the sight of a coccinellid, one could make a wish, but one could also not: the sight of a coccinellid could be a sign that a wish, a prior wish, will soon be granted.

***

we will be gone for a few days. we will not be here. we will be elsewhere, in other streets, among other homes, over seven other hills, where other people speak other languages, hold other hands, breathe other air. we will be elsewhere, somewhere we have never been, somewhere we hardly know, somewhere we will come to know, but not quite. we will be there and not here, for a while; not for long, though not for short either. we will walk in parts unknown, singing under our breaths in the languages that we know this interference of one world with another.

i like to keep seashells in my purse, tokens of the ocean, gifts from the womb made of curls and of spirals, seashell reminders of the coast, the edges, the borders so close, the coast and la haute mer and your tip of the toes pointed, body in a crescent moon, curved inward and downward, forward, plunged like a pen, carving eulogies on your chest and on your back, a canvas so blank, under lights so dim, with skin smooth as scales, but without reflection.

there was no bread for you to carry home. you fell into a deep, dark sleep. no light, no sound, no touch could rouse you. no songs, no whispers, no words could reach you. you couldn’t move your mouth to a smile. days fell into nights, nights fell into more nights, and in the darkness the seasons changed around you. you spent a summer, an autumn and a winter in a silent, black dream. your body withered to a feather, perfectly still. with spring the curtain fell on your unblinking eyes. now thousands of hands carry the thick of your brow and the light of your smile to the grey skies above them. there is a murderer in our midst, and no one has forgotten.

in june 2013, 15-year old berkin elvan was struck in the head by a tear-gas canister in istanbul while on his way to buy bread. he died on march 11th 2014, after 269 days in a coma.

let dusk come, let us run around aimless, let us lie in bed restless, let us come, let us come all over you and behind the hill, you need only trek up. you need only rise above, reach. watch as you walk, leaves fall off your shoulders. one at a time, as wind blows on, as angles unsettle, they fall and you walk up, with new skin.

catching the unwise with you, honey.

they met by a river. she was on a stroll, in search of a body of water. when she found the river, she sat on a bench and wondered what she would do without salt. he was not too far, gathering stones. when his hands were full, he sat next to her. she sighed audibly, but the wind carried her voice away.

he just wanted to throw stones in the river. he knew the current was too strong and that he could not make the stones skip—he was better off sitting instead of standing, and there was a bench, where she was seated, thinking about salt. she did not say anything after her sigh. he paid it no mind. he threw the stones one by one in the water. she thought of them at the bottom of the river, trading one element for another.

she had been the first person he had seen in days. he had been busy—he had set out to carry on the weight of things, and to provide them with relief. he had disentangled plastic bags from bushes and trees. he had unscrewed the broken light bulbs of deserted porches. he had flipped an hourglass, blew on a wind chime and locked all the doors. the stones were the last on his list. he wanted to find them a new place to land.

inside her the noise abated. she was grateful for the distraction. she was with every stone, cutting through the air with a small curve and a splash in the water, sinking below, under the currents. when he ran out of stones, the air around them grew still. there had been a long gap since her sigh. he thought of his hands. she remembered to breathe.

she looked at him, and he tried to smile. it was a weak, apologetic smile, but it cupped her like a hand on a stone. there was a sudden film of salt on her skin. with a nod in the flick of their eyes, they got up and followed the river.

i miss the silver doors and the alleys;
i miss walking with you, through you and in the dark
with my shadow against your walls.

i miss knowing you
like the palm of a hand i have carefully studied;
i miss you, la nuit surtout, surtout la nuit.

sometimes she forgets that he can see. she forgets that he was born with eyes, that he was blessed with able eyesight, and that he is capable of putting his vision to good use. just because his eyes aren’t as sharp as hers does not mean that he is blind to everything around him. when she points toward something and he looks far beyond her directions it is perhaps a blessing more than it is a curse.

***

she was fourteen, and she crossed her legs. she was very feminine, but thought otherwise. one summer, she was sitting on a bench in a metro platform with a boy and another girl. the other girl looked at her and said: you should not cross your legs, it will screw up your back, and i should know, i am a ballet dancer. the girl heard her, but kept her legs crossed. moments before, the boy had been sitting quietly next to her and his knee had touched her leg—it would be the beginning of a wonderful love story between them, and she knew she had to turn a blind eye at the reproof.