"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.

"My Reveries" by İlayda Yıldız

 Everything feels made up when you are stuck in an orphic reality that is embedded in your mind. A dream or a catastrophe, it is your sepulchered reality. Mine is pretty simple. I like to imagine myself tucked in a cottage that blossomed out of the soil in a land where there are infinite autumns. The cold is cold but you always have your checkered blankets on your feet. There always burns a fireplace passionately as if the fire is singing to your bones and warming them up. You bake orange cookies. You have coffee made every hour of the day. You have piles of books old and new, with hazy souls and these piles lay down in front of your windows, looking like a puzzle piece that fits perfectly. Cats, of course. No fire can warm you up enough if there are no cats with you in the cottage. One sleeps on top of a pile of books, the other sleeps in front of the window, watching the birds chirp their wings now and then. A typewriter awaits as you take a sip from your cup of coffee. The ink demands to be shed, the paper demands to be scribbled and the thoughts inside your head are knocking on the doors to get out. You sit, you pour your thoughts and feelings out. And when you take a look at the couch in front of the fireplace, you catch eyes with your loved one. You titter, and the whole room catches fire burning brighter and louder than the fireplace, more passionately, more deliberately. Love conquers the cottage. Love warms it up. Love makes everything in that cottage flourish. Because that is what love does. Here you have my safe reality. I tend to escape here whenever I abhor the undeniably true reality of our days, which happens quite often. Sometimes I hyperbole and imagine a neighbor living by the lake, a British author that keeps writing. And one day she gives me a handwritten copy of a book she wrote called “Orlando”. Well, then I stop myself there because who wants to escape to a place where you can be kindred spirits with Virginia Woolf, and then come back into a reality where privileged white men are ruining the world only for the sake of their egos? I prefer my reveries.

I prefer my reveries because “safe” is a myth on these streets. “Safe” is a phenomenon. No street is safe. No hour is safe. No costume is safe. The concept of feeling “safe” is ancient in the back of our minds. It is ancient history going back to the times when were inside the womb. Yes, I prefer my reveries where I do not have to feel my heart in my throat every time a car stops near me when I am walking on the streets. I prefer my reveries where I can listen to music without worrying about who could be following me from behind. I prefer my reveries where I can express my thoughts and feelings without having to worry about being punished for doing so. Yes, I rather stay in my reveries. Change my mind if you can. Or, disrupt your own comfort and choose empathy. Disrupt your safe zone and understand how far we are from the concept of “safety”. Come out of your chained, secured palaces and feel my fury. Until then, I prefer my reveries. 

"Not Mine" by İlayda Yıldız

   I am begging for a life that is not mine. Something else. Anything else. I am searching for a dimension that can take me in and change everything. An alcoholic drug addict author waiting for inspiration in a garage in Amsterdam, a flower lady dreaming about her lover as she grubs up the plants, a bookstore owner in London trying to escape the crowd to find inner loneliness, a child learning the alphabet. Something. Anything. I am begging for something other than this.

  I am worried about the book in my hand as I do not have an umbrella with me on a rainy day. A gloomy day getting swept away by slight drops of rain. The line that stands between the passengers and their bottled-up feelings of agony is filled with a puddle, soon to be covered by a train. I am worried about the book in my hand because letting a defenseless book get wet and worn off under the rain would be a poorly planned murder. I do not have an umbrella, you see, what I have on me is a seven-year-old crimson, chequered vintage coat. I am trying my best to hide my copy of Le Mythe de Sisyphe inside it. When the train that lets you get a full tour of the city -unintentionally, of course, due to its horrid velocity- arrives, I get in and start filling my head with thoughts that could get me through this.

  I imagine getting off in a town that is not mine. I get off in the town of red leaves and wisteria. The walls are embroidered with crimson touches of nature. The air…Well, the air spreads life. I am under the spell of this town somehow. I walk and walk some more until I am a red wisteria standing in the middle myself. I do not like it when I am unarmed, which happens when I do not have any trees or leaves in the street surrounding me. So, I take a turn and step into a narrow street full of trees and their hidden treasures. Homeless folks blended into the greyness of the town. Embroidered trees. Old cars are covered like they have something to lose. And finally, hidden stores stuck between buildings and branches. I see myself getting into a vintage store and hearing the stories of the clothes hanging there. A plaid shirt worn by a painter in Italy, she painted the happiest painting ever, then when she wanted to be happy herself she poured all the paints she used into her stomach. A velvet dress worn by Hedy Lamarr, who knows? A wallet carried by one of the first publishers in England. They all have stories. Stories that are not mine. Stories that I want to be mine.

  I wake up because I have to. I see the road coming to an end. I have to get off now, step into reality. I have to walk the streets of a town that is mine. Every single day, I have to stand in my own shoes, living a story that is mine. I am searching for a place to escape. If I cannot bring my dreams with me, if I have to leave them at the door, that is fine. Perhaps I can have dreams that are not mine. Hear me out. I am begging for a life that is not mine. Throw my pages. I need pages that are not mine.