"Can Rainbows Be In Black and White?" by İlayda Yıldız

 Drowning in the shadows is not like her. Escaping from those shadows is not her way, walking beside them is what she does. Making airplanes out of all the papers that cut her is her move. She holds her fears in the hands and walks with them, side by side. She can climb the rainbow with everything that is trying to pull her down, and she can even settle on the layer where the sun shines. All yellow, all bright.

  She stumbles. She almost drowns in the shadows. But ‘almost’ is where she always stays. Every time she stumbles, she remembers to tie her shoes. She opens her eyes. There are no shadows. Only her. But then what? How do you fight or walk with the shadows you can no longer see? Now all she can think about is how to stop all the reminiscence. For that, opening your eyes is not enough. She needs a bigger move. She has to open her heart.

  She is eight. Her world seems as if it is full of cotton candy and vanilla ice cream. She seems as if she has been swallowed by a giant pink galaxy. At night, you would think you could only hear her sweet melodies in her sweet dreams. But you know what? The only thing you could hear would be a pen silently dropping to the paper and scratching it softly. Her world was not filled with cotton candy and the only ice cream she would eat was lemon ice sticks. There would be a sour yellow line in her mouth, a stain in her shirt. She was swallowed by rainbows. She is eight and she writes in her locked diary hoping that the key stays with her: “Dear diary, today is Sunday. They gathered and they are having breakfast. A fancy one with lots of laughter. I did not go to the table. And no one noticed me. No one is aware of my absence. They are having breakfast and I am in my room waiting for someone to remember me.” She is eight. And all she wonders about is whether rainbows can be in black and white or not.

  She is almost fifteen. She buries herself in her books and classes. She lights candles in her room, puts on soft melodies as she reads The Waves and she dreams of the sunsets that are far away. She detests herself because ‘herself’ is far from being her own. She is just a reflection of everyone’s image of her. And it is not ‘herself’. Nowhere near. Why is she stuck in grey? Why can’t she find her way up to the rainbow?

  She is almost twenty, and she smokes like a chimney. She feels as if the words are coming up to her throat every time she takes a breath and colours her liver grey. What if she is stuck in grey? What if she is swallowed by a cloud of smoke that covers her good old rainbow? What if she is swallowed by greyness? She is almost twenty and she drops the pen into the paper:

I still check the monsters under my bed

There still plays a haunted house in my head

I cannot skip my turn when the shadows return

And rest beside my face

Why do I have to put on my best, golden smile

To be loved in this age?

  Somewhere, at one point where we cannot see yet, she is out of the woods, out of the greyness. Perhaps not all out, but she carries the grey cloud on her head, floating. For it is not like her to drown in the shadows.