Affected

“The truth is that man is a dirty river. To take in a dirty river without getting polluted, one must be a sea.” (Nietzsche)

Seeping from the outskirts of the city, those who had tied their lives to fate and destiny, ready to ignite at any moment, the brave ones were separated at the Tarlabaşı filling facilities, then pumped into the streets where evils were consumed like beer, were the years when Yasemin shot herself onto the street.

In homes, there were bursts of color television explosions. On private TV channels, sweet women were singing pop songs… The viewers were close together! Cigar-smoking sisters… Life had gained color! The suppressed curtain of the obligatory unhappiness of not being able to do what one desired had been lifted…

In the years when the pumping of life into the streets had just begun, and there was no current of the heart, where the physical solution of the sheer indulgence was mutually accepted…

And one night, Yasemin glued herself to the table of those who had no time for prayer because they were busy stoning devils. On that night, much was talked about life, and she was invited to a house in Gümüşsuyu…

As the boiling stones thinned, angry children, filled with anger and attacking like a swarm of locusts without jealousy or comment, had attacked her… In a short time, they had eaten up her body that was initially different…

She did not like the light; she adopted living in the dark as a principle! As her network of relationships expanded, the micron of evil slowly settled into her soul! She moved far away from the maturity of being a woman who would fall asleep in a man’s arms… As her roguish behaviors spread, her recognition increased!

Everyone was surpassing their own limits and living them!

I have never been with small women in my life; I listened to Aristotle, took the elegant and tall ones on my arm… And I also loved the one with the calm and confident gaze, as described by Nietzsche, seen in cows…

Besides the unfathomable depths, I discovered my foolishness and absorbed both them and life into me. Yet, I could not get rid of the feeling of fragmentation and the fear of the inability to integrate…

As I freed myself from the waves I got caught in the middle of all this turmoil, I listened to the voice of the rebellious man inside me! I woke up to the morning of a new day with the illusion that I had educated myself with my own mistakes!

On a Sunday morning, a seagull whispered to my window that goodness is not absolute, that the remaining existence is an illusion thanks to the paper scraps in your wallet…

I let out a bunch of madness that I couldn’t even hide from my inner chambers and let it flow out of my body…! To think about delicate things, I spoke softly.

I spoke with myself. I reconciled with myself. I even learned to mock myself in front of the mirror… While different lifestyles flowed through the streets for variable goals, I took a look at the eccentricities I could discern! Sometimes, the nights of my life became colorful. Perhaps that’s why I could melt the crowd of the world within me.

“What are you going to do with me?”
“I will put this city in my pocket and carry it from city to city…!” Attaching a smile to her face like a rose petal:
“When you sober up, you will forget me!”

She had a door, large and incapable of closing. Sitting at her table, when she connected emotionally, her pains, joys, and happiness would flow from her lips like beads emptying from a worn-out rosary string without hesitation.

In the leaden air choked by cigarette smoke, as she poured out her heart and shared it with others, she couldn’t see or didn’t care about the mocking darkness hidden in their eyes…!

Life was like a child playing a game for her. It made some slaves, some kings! However, for some reason, men perceived themselves as eternal KINGS, their women as slaves at home, and their lovers outside as QUEENS…

For Yasemin, these designations didn’t matter! She always positioned herself as the servant of the table. She loved to read poetry. And she also enjoyed drinking Raki.

Living her own life by baring her body, she once said to me, “A person is beautiful with their acceptable mistakes.” I was surprised. I would continue my friendship with this woman who carried big emotions in her delicate body…

Descending to the street to illuminate her increasingly darkened self, she would blend into the crowd, hopping with a different heel sound on each sidewalk stone, merging into the throng that had thrown in the towel for life…! While convinced that she would cut the ribbon of loneliness, she was drowning in a multiplying solitude!

I, being a fugitive man in my own loneliness, was winding my past into a tale… All memories were in that dead-end street. The curbs nurtured my sorrows. Sitting wet, pouring my voice into the unsolvable darkness of the sky while unleashing the Hicaz melody, my voice shattered into pieces in the moonlight. It was a bright yellow Hüzzam… These ears had listened to a long Nihavent section turning tears into a cascade from Şükrü Tunar’s clarinet…

Moving away from the tables that turned the soul into a sieve and emptied everything beautiful in it, I walked towards a navy blue. I stood in front of the Bebek Ferry Pier… I listened to the sounds of the Bosphorus until the daylight.

Athens-Thessaloniki January 2024