Hello, That is Love.

 

Imagine flower ants

Thousands of them running on your body

Making you feel itchy

That is love.

For a while, that itchiness makes you only crave more. You dive in to get more and more of it but you never realize the scratches on your skin. Because the more you scratch, the less they give you a piece of itch relief.

Imagine the smoke

Filling your lungs

And demanding to be inhaled

Even when there is no room left

That is love.

When you first find the pipe of love, all fresh and unknown, you will smoke like a chimney. Your lungs will be filled with it to a point where you run out of breath. But you never know where to stop. You keep trying to fill the room with smoke even though there is no room left. No room left for “you”. That is when you need to stop. Exhale. 

 YOU BETTER BELIEVE IN GHOST STORIES

The shattered pieces of my soul were crumbling upon my feet, yes, I planted my own wisteria with the company of my roaring agony and there happened a ricochet burst every time I tried to move my feet. There, my burning love could not tear apart that wisteria, it must have become a ghost cursing your name and tying me up even more firmly to the ground that held my shattered hoax, which was proudly named love back then. Somehow, reality crept in there. Oh, how treacherous and sly it was. How fortunate, the truth was even more treacherous than what you did. The truth was the only one sharp enough to cut that wisteria off. And there I landed on my feet once again. The bravest thing I have ever done was burn that wisteria with my salty tears so that it can never find me again. Me and the ghost of my love, we can collect and put all the shattered pieces back together, even if we create a billion-piece puzzle of my heart. It will be stronger than ever once we leave your hoax out of it. They say what you seek is seeking you, I am not seeking water for the branches of your hoax that crumble upon my heart, darling, I am looking for a knife.

Your sweet and treacherous hoax will haunt only you now, you are the one who killed it. I, on the other hand, befriended its ghost. 

 JUST EMBRACE,

As he was trying to give me some scientific information about the sky and its blessings, the literature-obsessed ghost in me came into play. Interrupting him, I said: “So, can we say that the Sun is hiding from the Moon at night, poetically speaking?” He started laughing. He told me that I totally screwed up, scientifically speaking. Still, I support my case with a full heart. The Sun is hiding from the Moon at night. But the Moon is already so cold, why does not the Moon know that the Sun cannot burn it no matter how afire the Sun’s heart is. The Sun is hiding from the Moon because the Sun knows that the Moon is afraid of her warmth. It is in vain, though. Firstly because the Sun cannot burn the Moon. Secondly, because neither the Moon’s fear nor the Sun’s escape can prevent the magic between them.

Just embrace.

You do not need to fear anything.

You do not need to hide

Because the magic will happen anyway.

Just embrace.

 LOOK UP,

I used to take every step with an unnecessarily cautious attitude. I would believe that if I ever missed a line, life would take my stumble as a threat and push my soul from a cliff. Now, I only look up. Now, I can finally see the stars. I finally remembered to look up and see the stars. If I cannot, I simply imagine them and they become my reality. I am no longer chasing lines. I am no longer chasing scratches. The stars, well, I am not chasing them, either. They are just there every time I want to see them. I am no longer creating the cliffs that I end up running from. Everything that used to burn up and set fire to my chest became the ashes that fade with the wind every time I remember to look up. Every wisteria that tangled around my feet became daisies and they only make me feel free.

“Remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see and wonder about what makes the universe exist. Be curious.”

-Stephen HAWKING

 BLACKOUT

Far from the idea of anything, am I really interested in all of this? Why do I keep losing myself in the process of loving someone else? Each time, I find my soul screaming at me. She wants me to hold my own hand once in a while and tell myself that I am the one that is worthy of fighting. I cannot shut doors. I can never shut the doors that are meant to be shut. Instead, I wait for someone else to shut the door and leave me on the other side of it so that I can breathe without the burden of shutting the door myself. I keep losing my own light in the process of shedding light on people who do not deserve any piece of it. I feel like anyone else would have given up already. But I keep trying. Maybe it is time I stopped trying and just accepted my melodrama.

You cause a blackout

In your soul because

You insist on shedding

A light on people who

Do not value the deed.

It is important that you know you do not have to stay where it feels forced. You cannot expect others to shed a light on you. First, perhaps they do not even have enough light for themselves. Second, their external light cannot illuminate your soul. Third and last, you do not need anyone else’s light. Your own darkness is always brighter than someone else’s forced match.

"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.