Letter for the waiting

Away from me, my heart is on a tree branch. My stuttering swings on an empty swing. My beloved has left his joy on the table, the arm marks of his shirt, the shadow of his words on his hands. Sadness is with us like a bleeding smile. This is the shortest of waiting, this is the most painful of waiting. Our memories freeze in honey season, what we cannot touch but see. Like bright lights reflecting off a dirty window. I'm looking for your hands, where are your hands? I am repairing my words again from their dismantled parts. A short sigh, a short me, a short fall. Everything that consists of us is like torn paper, cut short. Shall we raise a glass to regeneration? Shall we embrace and wake up to the nudity? Should we leave a carnation in the place we call "us"?

Away from myself, my heart is in a drop of water. The smell of ash fills my hair. Cracks and cracks where silences grow. I am like an old wooden mansion. My story is on fire, my voices are ashes, my stairs are dust. Look, my hands are cracking. Who will hug me from where? Who will mend my trunks full of moth? Who will give back my dreams stolen from my sleepless nights? Mirrors fall into the void, shatter, memories bleed from where I touch. I dream of colored threads. I am getting ready for an unforgettable dance with colored ropes that I tied my feet, hands and whole body with. Resin-scented tulle in my hair, plucked from wishing trees. I am like a kite looking for its people on the migration routes. My feet want to go, go. Losing my footprints in cities whose distance I do not know.

Away from myself, my heart is in great fire. My destroyed cities are among the sighs, my burned villages and mountains are witness to this. We are silent in the middle of a great desert. A good time to be buried, among the rootless trees. If we draw a big forest in the sand, will our existence grow again? Do our roots cling to each other? Will my voice find your hands? The season is dry. It's too late to play blind. Should we wait for another season, maybe a summer, maybe a winter. Will my seed crack, will my leaves bleed, will my arms reach the sky? Let's say one more season. Let me go, in the growing loneliness of my childhood. Maybe a wait, maybe a sigh, maybe a call. Shall we stop for a moment and look at someone else's sky? Should we search for our memories from near and far? Shall we call friends and prepare a big table? Let everything be festive. A page of the whitest, a handkerchief of the cleanest. Maybe to bleed, maybe to test, maybe to find the lost, maybe we make a list of cities where we got lost? Should we collect our fallen laughter while volunteering for a disappearance? Away from myself, I walk to the shore of my borders. One step for me, one sigh for you. This dream is a disappearance in unwitnessed times.

Gülden Ateş