I will give you a list houses
that once used to be my home
and addresses that are the only memory
that has not been blurred
or manipulated by my mind.
If you ever want to find me,
go there.


You will see the line of trees that
framed my sunrise
and almost dry riversbeds of
round white stones, where
I slipped once (or more).
You will see the duststorms,
and the heavy rains
I stood in.
You will see the the intersections,
I could never quite cross.
But all this you see,
is not me.



If you want to find the ‘me’,
‘me’ that I do not know of,
that I cannot give you,
go there.
And look for windows I sat by.
Look for the cold floor I lied on.
Sit there and think of a girl
who never felt quite like a person,
who could look at what lay ahead
and know
that neither the path, nor the journey was hers.
Who only wanted a room flooded with
gentle light of drowning sun,
and songs that could make her sadness beautiful.

My life is divided into different rooms
as is my heart.
For as long as I remember,
from the time I used to care for decorations
to the time I am too lazy to clean up.
From the moments of sweet solitude by the window
to the clinking glasses and winking eyes.
The room belonged more to them
than to me.



And I often found it unsettling,
as if on a night
when I would be hiding under covers
not knowing what to fear,
someone would knock at the door
and with that knock, would come a pair of shoes
and a set of clothes, holding a person
whose face, motive or aim
would soon be inconsequential.



And slowly she would drag me
out of each room,
snatching away each memory that she touched,
knocking down my bookcases filled with my escape,
tearing away the wallpapers
behind which I hid my unvoiced cries.
The doors would be shut on my face,
leaving me out in a storm on a moonless night,
leaving me alone to face all that I didn’t know of
taking away all that I know.

We twist in the grip
of our own prejudices.
The valleys of our hatred
have become a part of our scars
that has a throbbing bitterness,
that impairs our vision
and numbs our heart.
Our lives divided by this fissure into
one half looking for a way out of hostility
and other half feeding on it.

The familiar images of a girl with strength
and a guy with heart
and feelings that can be reasoned.
I found them everywhere in stories
but not in life.
Mostly they were just weak people
who learnt how to live with their heart.
And loved and let themselves be loved
with the faults that they had.
Here
people who were – what they were.
No love or devotion
promising to change them into lovable beings.
Especially when ‘lovable’ was defined
by people who didn’t approve certain lives
and certain love.
And the perfect image of love
and notion of the perfect people who deserved it
made me think of the emotions we cut from our heart.
Leaving us little more empty,
taking us a little more far
from the perfect life that we were told to have.

I saw you

soft as the clouds of heaven.

I felt you

covered in the condensed drops

of love that the whole world breathes out.

And I hated you for it.

I saw your skin marked with me.

I saw the cracks in your smile

covered in my kisses.

I saw my reflection in your heart

that was made for my thirst.

I saw my heart.

I saw what hid there.

I saw the storm that never calms.

I saw the poison that has no color.

I saw your eyes become the clouds,

I saw it rain.

I saw you tremble as earthquake

that tries to contain itself.

I saw you make your home

in my storm.

And I hated you for that.

I do not draw you.
But my memory of you.
A time in my life,
the moment lost.
With only a memory left behind
that withers everyday.
I do not draw you
to preserves you,
who lives well off
in a warm home
in a cold country.
But I draw you
who lit my mind,
and froze my heart in an eternal hope
The only you I could ever love,
yet never love.
The one who burns my life
one day a time.
The one who I must forget.

Oh! Let me be you.
Who walks with a sun in your pocket
for every rainy day.
Who stood at crossroads
and decided which road shouldn’t exist.
Let me be you for a day.
So that I am not the one
who hides in hollow words,
who makes her bed on the dreams of others.
Let me be you,
so that I can put out my hand
always with the confidence
knowing that the love I ask
shall be given.

But what is this that I feel?
Why my hands shake?
Why my heart cries?

Is it because
the one who is breaking the wall
with bare bleeding hands
has the same pain, same fear
as the one who is hiding behind that wall.
Is it because
this love, this life
leaves no one without scar.

Everything he was,
everything he did-
was a constant effort
to be true to the image
he had of himself.

He reminds me of struggle
to be someone else
while believing that he is
struggling to be himself.

There is a soft tune that
moves beneath your fingers
as they move over the pages
and words and worlds
that you will never see.
All the words of hope
that I whisper
to the you
who exists within these barriers
of skin, bones and sorrow.
I fear these words will be like the music
that doesn’t stop but fades,
dissolving into time and distance.
Like that music
it will pass from me to you,
from you to nothingness.

When you think you are holding onto
the last shred of yourself,
don’t spend it on the
words that have been long lost in the air,
on the gazes that the eyes have long forgot.
Keep it safe for yourself.
You have lost bigger things than love
and you have still lived well.
And a broken heart is something
that everyone needs in life.

I can’t hear your sighs

while you think I do not care enough.

I would love to bind myself and my life

around you,

Had I not been so sure

that freedom is the only measure of happiness for me.



The love they talk about

is not in my heart.

I can’t harbor such sweetness.

I can’t live in surrender.

I was not made for that.

My heart was made to be loved,

but to be cherished.

I won’t settle for anything less.

I do not ask for anything more.



My idea of love was never

the protection or sense of safety I always lacked.

Or admiration true or false

that could put to sleep the complexes I have.

Or to be touched in ways

that make human hearts race.



My idea of love was

to be so precious to someone

that they you never

change me or break me.



You changed me.

You broke me.

And I only remember the sighs you took while doing so.

Making me feel less than what I am.



But still, I breathe the same air as you,

Cause,

Once,

You almost loved me.

I cried and complained
and wrote of this sadness.
I said the same stuff again and again
and still I felt
that I wasn’t saying enough.
I saw your face
in every word I wrote.
I saw your face
till I couldn’t see anymore.
Till I became blind
to all reason.
Till I created the world
where I do not have to wait for you.
Where you didn’t exist, I didn’t exist.
But it was all wrong.
I realized you had to exist somewhere
for me to keep on writing.

On the 8’x10′ beige carpet that you chose
We lie together, spooning.
Of all the possibilities I had for myself
Never was this a part.
Never had I thought of a caressing hand
Holding me together.
Of eyes filled with passion
Transfixed on me.
Of another skin , this close to mine.

And slowly your grips tightens.
You hold me down.
Hold me captive in a heart so dear to me.
And I see all my dreams in front of me.
Are you making them come true?
Or are they leaking out of me?
Through the cracks made by strikes
Of your once loving hands.
Is their fading away their
Last goodbye to me?

But it’s a loss I can live with.
Tell me your dreams,
To fill the spaces that mine occupied.
Or tell me of a way to get mine back
Without having to leave you.
Tell me of love, your love.
Let my heart be consoled by that.
Tell me of how I once was,
Before you. I can’t remember,
Do you?

Kiss me, remind me
Why we are here?
Can you lessen my pain?
Can you free me?
You smile.
Of course, you can.

So I close my eyes and wait.
Wait patiently for my release.
I wait till I feel
The blade on my neck
And your breath on my back.
So this is love, isn’t it?
A slow death.
A silent wait.
Dripping blood
And a red carpet.

This life. These people. Who can shatter

at least impact.

But I suppose we live in denial.

For I don’t think that we will

be living this life as we are

if we knew how delicate it is.



I imagine you hands and their gentle grip.

You lips, how they curl when they smile,

and how lovely the words they utter.

You skin that shudders and shivers.

I imagine all this and all that is yours

And hence it is mine.



But when you lifeless body

meets its promised destiny.

Will you still be mine?

Those eyes, that skin, those hands

without life.

And you will rot away

till you are part of this earth.

And you will be everywhere,

but still I would be alone.




Is that love?

Is it love that makes my hand tremble

at the mere thought of you not being there.

Let’s choose this love

that will be end of me, end of you.

Let’s accept the pain this love is.

Because nothing we do,

no pain that we give each other

can be worse than what we will be left with

in the end.

I have an idea of Myself.

And how often, in the unregistered intervals of time,

When thoughts of world avoided me

with as much  fervor as I avoid this world.

I think of what I am,

I realize that of all the people I have deceived,

the one I fooled with perfection was myself.

When I see what I do not want to,

my mind desperately grabs onto a stray thought,

to distract me from understanding

Of what I am about to realize.



But I know this game too well

and this is not a secret that I have uncovered

for the first time in life.

It is what I half-remember in all my waking hours

and all that I know of in my sleep.



I know this lie, I have been telling myself.

But today is not the day,

to shatter my Idea of Me

with one cruel realization.



The day, when it comes,

shall be the last, I breathe, as me.

For I cherish this Idea

more than myself.

I dreamt of Galip’s dream,

He dreamt of  sitting by a blue haired ******* a bus.

I dreamt of what he saw.



He looks at her sitting alone by the window.

He doesn’t wonder why her hair is blue.

He doesn’t ask why is she so beautiful.

He doesn’t wonder why she she alone,

at midnight boarding empty buses.



He sits and looks at her.

And imagines the people who see her everyday.

He looks at her eyes that look at

everything in the world as if she owns it.

That looked at everyone as if they are hers.

He wonders do these people know how fortunate they are

to be at receiving end of her smile.

He knows (as I know) why

she caught his eye.



She looks exactly as she is.

She is something he could never be.

Something I could never be.

Galip and me, both are caught in the storm of her being

And we forget what we are.

And it is bliss.

I have to sit quiet,

Wait for the wind

To blow away my tears before they fall.

I have to keep watch

On what I say, what I think.

Even in my sleep, I can’t betray myself.

Gulp each cry, each word I speak,

To be dropped off on a paper no one reads.

Everyone wants a rock to hold onto.

A quick mire, no one needs.

For what do I owe

This heartbreaking happiness?

This eternal river of tears?

For my love, my ego and my fears.

Who can I turn to?

Who can I blame?

For these sad affairs and my sorry state.

My story is better unwritten.

My sorrows untold.

People are fed up of giving sympathies after all.

Bound by the choices, by free will, I made.

I do not have the liberty to complain.

I go through my playlist,
looking for all the songs
that like-crazed people
have written for me and
for lonely nights as these.
This voice of stranger that sings my pain
takes me back to this same bed
and same sorrow
somewhere in the past that I want to loose.
Someone sits beside me yet again.
And this weight
is as frightening
as comforting.
To know that the spirits of the nights
that I have killed
are again here,
to take away a friend of theirs.

On nights like these,
I prefer the company
of sad cries that people call songs,
of walking memories that people call ghost.

Would people have been more kinder
and affectionate,
if only the world didn’t misunderstand
niceness on a daily basis?
How come we live with such a distorted view
that we are afraid of being good to each other?
From the fear of being judged.
From the fear of being ridiculed.
From the fear of being burdened forever.
From the fear of being taken advantage of.
From the fear of being looked down on.

I make some space on my cluttered desk
for my head to rest its worries.
And I find a string of light
as a keepsake
to take with me when I’m buried.
What else am I going to miss?
There are so many things I miss in life already.
But I can’t make my heart strong enough
to reach out to a life
that I have lived without.
I can’t make myself
go out of this room
open the door to see
the spring that I always dreamt of,
the spring that waits for me outside.