Memoryloss

Do you remember losing yourself

on finding me?

Do you remember reading me

Like the book of disasters?

Do you remember then

being a band-aid for the cuts I’d been?

Do you remember the grenade I gave you,

Telling it’s my heart.

Do you remember lighting my cigarette

While walking through the forest fires?

Do you remember the black of my eyes

And the white of my bones

And everything grey in between?

To the moon and back,

Remember?

Through a black hole

and for eternity, do you remember?

Yeah, neither do I.

Forgiving is hard. Forgetting is even worse.

They told me on the day one you’re a monster

So I loved you under my bed

After fifty six days, you packed all your stuff,

Took a shower and moved out.

After fifty six and a half days I am waiting

to begin to learn how to ignore

Because now you’re the elephant in every room.

While I’m trying not to think about you, about your name,

everything around me is singing it.

Like a song I can’t get rid of.

The entire night we both spoke a language that neither

Of us could understand.

And I don’t know if it sounded like “please hit me”

I wish I knew you’d cross the line

I could have quietly erased it while you were not looking

But you crossed the line

Cleared your throat

Kissed you knuckles

And took it wherever you wanted

Punched in my face
Broke the windshield

Made me bleed

You should know I bleed enough in 12 months every year.

I don’t need your kind contribution.

So a part of me asked you to leave,

The other made you stay in my head

and I hope we treat each other better this time.

Not just another story I can't tell my mother.

Your fingers reached to the back of my skull.
Your words touched where your hands could not.
You turned out to be my perfect cup of coffee
While I figured why I hated tea.
In your duplex apartment, we went one.
Simply and softly.                          
Very softly and very simply.
The only thing hard were the muted million kisses,
As if we were scared of the walls who might tell your neighbours.
We were fierce.
But in an attempt to leave the creases on our hearts
And not on to the blue bedspread.

We lay next to each other
While our clothes made friendship with the floor.
Between the fire and us and our skin, there was no room for light.
The night itself was like the match sticks that burnt and died.
It burnt because it was about us. It died because it had to.
My mother says there’s no shame in being hungry.
But how do I tell her I am hungry for another person.
Hungry for another soul. Hungry for another heart.
Hungry for another girl.

Until next time

At two thirty in the night

I’m not sure how to get home,

so I’m outside your apartment.

I went for the double beer tour.

And then a few more.

All these years, when you lived

in the parallel world,

So much near but just not close

I got better at drinking

than stopping.

While the emptiness got better

 at being heavy.

So you come down

straight through the window.

Unnoticed, but like that necessary air

I don’t know

how you get inside my lungs,

and replace every corner of it

with your breath,

as if you are the only thing

it needed.

From every angle I look drunk

And you come looking a lot like fun.

Drunk fun is so much better

As no one seems to care,

the trees, the streetlights,

the pavement, the sleeping dogs,

the gates and the gate keepers,

except you,

who keep it a goodnight

until the yawning era.

Because otherwise

it might mean some falling

And you care

how I am afraid of heights. 

Bitter is rather better

There are pains that painkillers can’t kill.

There are muscles you can’t un-tense.

There are scars you can’t undone.

There are relations that are nothing but unhealthy.

There are these absolute strange moments,

with the most familiar people.

Every time I bite my nails, I like to ignore

the meaning in the depth of my teeth.

The size and shape of my feet

remind people of my dead grandmother.

They should know it wouldn’t be easy for her to get to heaven

because they can’t stop looking down.

My eighty four year old grandmother

used to wake up before her memory,

always with the ghosts alongside

that partnered her for twenty five years.

But this morning, she woke up with a sigh

that escaped her body and danced

 in the wind like the white flag.

Don’t think I am like a stuck cap of a bottle,

a jammed window pane that I will open up.

I don’t have much to open up but two hands

with two middle fingers to swivel around.

So when they asked me why don’t I visit them,

I wanted to grab them by shoulders as my reply

However I only said, just out of habit.

My parents chose my name,

my ancestors my surname.

And that’s enough.

Everything else is my personal choice.

Change your mind

You’re standing at the edge of the metro platform

with no intent to board the train but to jump off in front of it.

The platform is filled with all the shapes and sizes of strangers.

If you jump, they will be left with a forever connect with you.

Maybe you've ticked all the boxes in your head

of all the feelings you wanted to feel before you die.

So maybe you’ll jump.

Within micro seconds the train will hit you, smash you

And you’ll be a pulpy mess of yourself.

You might have calculated all the risks yesterday,

But who knows if you’d turn bad at math today?

I have heard that trains move faster thank you think.
So when you’ll jump

Those strangers will watch you fall

and will be able to do absolutely nothing about it.

Some will watch you fall and die. And they will be changed forever.

If you die, you may rest in peace while others won’t.

Your death will forever haunt them, and your ghost 
will never quit following them.

You’ll keep dying over and over again in their dreams,

and over and over again, they won’t be able to do a thing about it.

There must be something ugly about your life that has pushed you so far

that you’re standing at the edge of the platform

but just FYI there’s nothing that’s beautiful about suicide either.

There are many better ways to die.

So step back from the edge of the platform,

let your mind be changed

move way back from the yellow line, turn around and breathe.

If you see a clock there, don’t just see the clock;

do what it does. And keep going.

While you’re going away, think of 
the moment between your jump and the ground,

what if you changed your mind then?

A failed attempt

You come, you go,

You talk or you don’t,

You be in the bed

Or paint the streets red

You run like time

Or stand like water

You slaughter people

Or donate them your organs
Toothaches or heartaches
Handshakes or earthquakes

I fail to understand

which ones  

are more deadly.

For me,

the world is being remade,

each and every day

and failing

to make me dead.

A love letter from my bad habits

The pill says:

You pop me in and I pull you back from falling into the empty inside of you. A gulp sound and I quiet the creak of wood outside your window. I kill the dogs in the streets to stop their howling, so you sleep peacefully. This world is a noisy place and I’m glad to let it go silent for you.

The cigarette says:

You light a match and it’s not only me who’s on fire. We burn together, like two lovers sharing heat. Who knows it better to never be lonely and yet feeling alone? I come in packs of ten, wearing a warning label. Guess what I still have people to suck the cancer out of me. They say people die for me. You do too. But I never quit to burn in your love.

The alcohol says:

Dry days, Ten Pms, Out of Stock seem like nightmares and happy hours like lottery tickets to you. According to science, an adult human is 78% water. And there are days when you’re straight 78% me. I am glad you choose to get drunk. Because I sit here in fancy bottles, totally drunk in your love. And I find no other thing to sober me up.

                 

The heart says:

Apart from pumping blood, 26 is the number of times I’ve already been hit by the Cupid’s arrow this year. And it’s not even May. I think you treat me like the heart of a butterfly which lives for 14 days and then dies. I would love you more if you try to make it live longer.

The hope says:

I’ve noticed you do two things every now and then: Throw a fist in the air and chuck me out in the ocean like a silent prayer. I may be a hopeless romantic but my love for you is not wrong in all the good ways. I swear I’ll be the raft that saves you whenever the ship will get busy sinking.

The tears say:

As if everything sad has gravity in it. Each time they make me roll down your cheek, I helplessly fall in love with you. Don’t be afraid of me. Go ahead and cry. This will only boost our love and you will feel better. More love means more tears mean more salt. And salt is the reason that everything can float so well in the Dead Sea.

Forever says:

I have seen you staring into horizons and night skies to meet me. You love to get away with it. You take a little more and a little more until there is no more to draw on, since forever. You should learn to make your choices quick because time is running out and so is my love. A slow marathon.

The paper says:

I am crumpled at my edges and your lack of love is like scissors for me. I am the lover you should be scared of the most. Like I am scared of you that one day you’ll open your mouth to cry to somebody and that nothing will come out. Because I think you’d have given me all of you by then.

Truly, madly, deeply
Yours.

Unlearn to go back

Yesterday, at an ungodly hour

The short man’s daughter appeared at the door

Carrying the gifts of her husband’s lovely touch again,

blue eyes and cracked self-esteem,
hair messed up and her life as well.

She came with his pieces sticking to her,
those hands that she seemed to have enjoyed

even if  they were fists, fists, fists.

My grandmother held her,

Fed her Danish biscuits with seven cups of tea

And a few points

      1)   Don’t become an expert at applying concealer

      2)   Pick yourself up

      3)   Don’t make excuses, just leave

      4)   You could still be, what you want to be

      5)   That’s all there is to it

Today, she left.

She thought she is leaving,

But I know she isn’t going to go anywhere.

Lost and Found

I’ve been having an argument with myself about life.

I’ve been looking for life’s lost and found.

I’ve been looking for what I do own and I don’t.

Everyone owns a name, right.

No I haven’t found what’s there in the name

But some names that always cause

something to fall inside of me.

There are some vital organs of mine

made of paper and I’ve found that

a lot of people like to light matches for fun.

I’ve found out that how home is not a place

But a feeling you get to see certain people.

I don’t have butterflies in my stomach then.

I have skydivers and they all forget their parachutes.

My workplace sits around 70% woods and I wish I had wings.

Every evening at five, a zillion birds socialise at a high pitch.

I've found out that even they rant about not being free,

They’re also pissed for being chained to the sky.

While I write this, I've found out

I cannot tell and you cannot listen about the loss, 

but only feel.