ex-perimental

Ev hakkında

Orası ne zaman evim oldu bilmiyorum. Sanki hep öyleydi de benim evin yolunu bulmam zaman aldı. Çünkü ev zamanla olmaz. Nedenle olmaz. Seçmenle olmaz. Evin hep evindir zaten. Tadı senindir, kokusu senindir, hissi senindir. 

 

Orayı ilk gördüğüm anı hatırlıyorum. Fotoğraftan değil, bir kitaptan değil, renkli bir ekrandan değil. Kendi iki gözümle, uçak “işte burası” denebilecek kadar aşağı eğildiğinde. Yemyeşil tarlaları hatırlıyorum. Şirin. Nizami. Eksik hiçbir şey yok. Fazla hiçbir şey yok. Sınırlar belli. 

 

Metrobüs boğazdan geçerken herkes bir anda durur ya. Kalakalır insan. İnanamaz. O sıkış tepişliğin içinde bu güzellik vardı ve unutmuştuk hepimiz. Nasıl unuturuz. Nefesimiz kesilir. Laf bölünür. Sadece camdan bakarız. Her gün de geçsek o iki durağın arasından, her gün aynı şey olur. İşte ben eve döndüğümde, ben her eve döndüğümde, aynı şey olur. Nefesim kesilir her şeyin nasıl da tam olması gerektiği gibi oluşundan. Şşşşş. Sevinç teyze bir saniye. Hayatımın aşkına ilk kez bakıyorum.

 

Biriyle tanışırken o kişiyle bütün yaşayacaklarımız gözlerimizin önünden bir film şeridi gibi geçse, çoğu insandan merhabadan hemen sonra kaçardık diye düşünüyorum. O tarlaları ilk gördüğümde her şeyi görebilseydim… iki gün yağmasa üçüncüde mutlaka yağan yağmuru, küçük yeşil Hollanda bisikletimi, gece yürüyüşlerimi ve bahçedeki tavşanları, otobüsü Bercy-Seine’den kaçırınca Charles de Gaulle’a koşsam yakalayabileceğimi, dünyanın küçücük bir yer olduğunu, her şeyin biraz aynı ama bazı şeylerin nasıl da kıyaslanamayacak kadar farklı olduğunu görebilseydim. Uçağın yanaşmasını beklemezdim de camı kırar atlardım belki. Ve toprağı öperdim. 

A Feather in Still Air

Everything is alright now. 

 

No hunger, no rush, no noise, no fear. 

Not too hot, never too cold. 

 

The air hums quietly, like a machine just before it breaks.

 

They brought us here. 

 

Everything is measurable. Controllable. Stoppable. Startable. 

 

You don’t have to feel sad if you don’t want to. 

Well, you can’t feel sad even if you want to. 

 

You can’t mess up. 

You can’t miss the bus — there is no traffic. 

You can’t burn the dinner — you don’t cook it. 

Your father will never yell — because you don’t have one. 

Your lover won’t break your heart — because hearts don’t break anymore. 

 

I remember feeling anxious. Always.

The noise, the ache, the pulse.

I remember feeling too much.

I always thought that was the problem.

 

I moved to Germany once.

This place reminds me of there.

Clean. Quiet. Efficient.

Empty.

 

I thought I wanted this. I wanted to run away. I wanted peace and quiet and no more tears and worries and no more fluctuations in the heart rate. 

 

I wanted everything to stop and not move anymore. 

Not forward, not backward. 

I wanted time to stop but not my heart. I wanted minimum effort. 

 

Everything is controlled now. 

Temperature: twenty-five. 

Hormones and minds. 

Sleep at nine, wake at five. 

 

I used to have cat hair on every cardigan. 

Now I eat two thousand calories a day. 

Not 2.001. Not 1.999. 

 

I miss the cemeteries.

Silence.

I haven’t seen someone die in eight years.

 

I don’t run. I don’t laugh. 

I don’t cry. I don’t worry. 

I just be.

 

Like the summer of 2009.  

 

*

 

Why do I feel like a feather drifting through the wind, if everything is fixed?

Maybe because there isn’t any wind. 

 

 

 

 

I stayed as much as I could

“Do you remember the time when my family moved?” I asked. I was lying on the bed, staring up at the ceiling. I liked looking at irrelevant thing aimlessly while thinking. 

 

He lifted his head from the computer and turned to me, half intrigued, half amused, wondering what was coming next. “Yes?”

 

 I often asked questions out of the blue; this was not extraordinary. The point though, was this time. 

 

“We had just started dating that past summer,” I said. “We still barely knew each other. We couldn’t meet up for almost a month, and I started forgetting your face and why I liked you in the first place.” 

 

He smirked, “Honey, you had your chance fifteen years ago. Bit too late now to break up with me over that.” 

 

I laughed. He always made me laugh. 

 

“Hush. I was moving three different houses at the same time and trying to manage a double major at the uni. I was sick, exhausted, and that terrible injury hadn’t healed yet. I was in pain every second of every day.” 

 

“Yes…” He’d learned his lesson not to interrupt me when I got like this. The game had long been forgotten. I had his full attention now. 

 

I kept looking away. “And you remember my high school sweetheart? The one I used to dream about for two years—right up until I met you?

 

He rolled his eyes. “It is definitely too late now to ditch me for that guy.”

 

I didn’t laugh this time. “I stopped seeing him when I met you. But I saw him again, once more—around the time I moved. I told you back then, remember? You just laughed it off; said it was normal. You were always logical. You knew it was my brain’s way of showing me love in the only way it knew how. You said I needed a ghost to remind me that I was loved and would be loved again. And until then, he’d keep me company.”

 

He chuckled nervously. “Honey, you know I love your stories, but I’m starting to believe you’re actually going to leave me.”

 

Obviously, I wasn’t going to—but still, the obscurity scared him.

 

I turned to him instantly. Acting out, serious as I can be. “You know I would never leave you if I could. I would neverleave your sight. I would work remotely, and the kids would starve, and my parents would worry.” His worry melted into laughter. That sound—his laughter—was my favourite thing in the world. I wanted to stop right there. Freeze time. He was never going to be that happy again while looking at me.

 

A tear formed in the corner of my eye. I wanted to stop. But I couldn’t.

 

“I remember the day I saw you after that short break,” I said softly. “It was a Monday. I had classes, but you couldn’t wait anymore. You came to my school during lunch. We ate together. The moment you touched me, everything was gone—all the pain, the exhaustion. I was at peace. I didn’t need food, or rest, or even school. I just wanted you to hold me.

 

“When my friends asked why I liked you, I always said, ‘Because my brain stops working when I’m with him.’ That’s what it felt like—like my thoughts finally went quiet. It’s been that way ever since.”

 

He was listening carefully now, the way you listen when you sense something slipping out of your grasp.

 

“I remembered why I loved you that day,” I continued. “I was late for that creative writing class—almost an hour late. You were late for work too; you forgot you even had to go. But we stayed. I knew we shouldn’t, but I stayed as long as I could. Honey, I stayed as much as I could. I’ll stay as much as I can.”

 

My voice cracked. The tears came freely now. He sat up, alarmed.

 

“Honey, what are you saying?”

 

I met his eyes. The fear in them broke me. There was no more stalling, no more subtext. I took a deep breath.

 

“I’m dying,” I whispered.

 

The words fell between us like glass shattering. 

 

He didn’t move for a long time. His lips parted slightly, but no words came out. I could see him trying to rewind, trying to find the moment when life still made sense.

 

When he finally spoke, his voice trembled. “No, you’re not. You’re tired, that’s all. You always get dramatic when you’re tired.”

 

I smiled faintly. “Maybe. But I mean it this time.”

 

He shook his head and came closer, holding my hand like he was trying to anchor me to the world. “You can’t just—say it like that. You can’t.”

 

I wanted to comfort him, tell him it wouldn’t hurt, that I’d just fade quietly like a song ending mid-note. But I didn’t have the strength.

 

Instead, I said, “Remember that first day? The day you came to my school?”

 

He nodded, tears streaming down his face.

 

“That peace I felt then… I feel it again now.”

 

I smiled one last time. “It’s okay, honey. I stayed as much as I could.”

“I have been depressed my whole life.”

“I have been depressed my whole life.” 

 

That was the first thing I thought when you said you wanted us to introduce ourselves but cut the boring stuff. “I have been depressed my whole life.” Or, at least, that was what I thought. 

 

To better understand a writer — not that I’m pretentious enough to call myself one — one should know about their life. That’s the only way any piece of writing ever makes sense. That’s the only way to understand someone. You have to trace the cracks. Watch where the light bends strange. Look left when they’re insisting you look right. You should know what makes them separate. What makes them desperate. The code they’re speaking — especially when the words feel disparate.

 

So, I should give you my code. I like rattling off my sorrows, one after another, fast. Makes them feel smaller. Pretend they are smaller. Top it off with a big smile. 

 

I don’t have a favourite colour. Or favourite song. Or movie. Or book. I mostly pick favourites from my struggles. I dress them up. I take them by the arm. We walk in, in all kinds of places, together. Never felt alone, myself. Not once. That was the first hit I took. My mom convincing my dad that I would be alone if something happened to them. Me. A two-year-old who walked right back home as soon as other children arrived in the park. I always knew what I wanted. A brother? Not in my Christmas list. Spending all my childhood in hospitals? Wouldn’t be my first choice. Having my father ripped away. Always checking behind the door to see if he’s hiding there. Reading it in a newspaper I throw away. One, two, three. Bingo. Right? Let go. No? Shit. Here we go.

 

There was a party trick I learned when I spent a year abroad. You have to start a fire, open up a conversation, impress people. “Say something strange about yourself, something different.” What I usually mention, is that I speak a bit of Norwegian. I sometimes do it to actual people — not the NPCs you got to fill the time, or the class credit, with. Actual people you actually want to see again. So, hiding it, would feel like lying. So, I say it. Quick. With a grin. The goal is to puzzle them into silence, leave them unsure how to continue. Tell and run away. Hope they forget. Hope they don’t mention it again. Hope they do. Hope they ask all kinds of questions. Hope they don’t press on the wound. Hope they blow on it.

 

My professor in law school killed my best friend. I was raped. I have an injury that hasn’t healed for 5 years so I’m pretty sure I should start calling myself disabled at some point. I’m probably autistic. I have pain. Every day. I have chronic physical pain. That is the biggest truth to me. It’s all I think about. It’s all I am. I used to be someone. I used to be smart. I used to be funny. Pretty. I was the sort of girl guys fell for. Instantly. That’s how my best friend introduced me to a guy once. I could open my water bottle on my own then. I don’t think he would look me the same. I don’t think anybody does. 

 

These are the things I think about when I think about my life. I have more. Oh, many, many more. I have the utter serenity of a bird when faced with the slightest wind. I have the madness of a great coward. I don’t like being told what to do. I especially don’t like being told what I can and cannot do. What I really like is doing exactly the opposite. I love proving people wrong. I love being the kind of mystery that makes you question if you are an idiot because how can you not get what is going on when every single page of that book is wide open for the world to read. But those are the things I don’t tell. Not yet. I have to remember them. You’ll have to wait.