The Weight that Melts the Darkness

While time continued to flow on its own,

I was waiting for the person I was meant to be.

There were colors in my chest, waiting to break free.

My words were silent and dense as mercury,

Heavy.

They were not meant to spill inside.

I had surrounded them with a wall of hard stone.

As my thoughts grew more complex,

And my feelings could no longer find their words,

The mercury inside me began to boil.

It searched for a crack to escape.

But my stone walls were too strong.

Time was passing,

Where was I in this plane?

How much longer would I have to wait?

Days passed slowly, with ups and downs.

Then suddenly, time cracked.

It was after a therapy session.

My soul’s doctor and I had forgotten the ticking clock.

A beam of purple light washed through me.

The lock on my box of sorrows was finally broken.

In the imagination that I created during that session,

I gathered all the charlatans on a barren plain.

 It was like the desolate world in “Beneath the Planet of the Apes,”

 ruined by mankind.

I watched them from the top of a mountain.

From every ideology, every religion, every language…

I had brought together all the charlatans who ever existed.

All the religious leaders who exploited their followers.

All the masked politicians who rose on the shoulders of those who trusted them,

Those who grew fat with wealth and influence while consuming lives in the name of “the cause.”

Those who cut and pasted everything with Quantum,

Which you can never reach the bottom of, 

and the more you understand it, 

the more you get lost.

Life coaches and healers who claim to cleanse the soul with virtual certificates earned in a few weeks,

And all the other deceivers,

The sellers of false hope.

They were all there.

It was time for revenge.

For all the pain ever suffered by humanity.

I could have torched them all like in a Tarantino film.

My therapist had given me permission.

She said it was just an imagination.

But I couldn’t, because it was real.

My brain couldn’t tell the difference.

Then I sat down and wrote out all the pains of the universe

that I carried inside me.

The universe had poured itself out,

Using me as a vessel.

Even I didn’t know some of the things I wrote.

A thick book with black pages and gray font.

I connected all the charlatans’ consciousnesses to a computer code.

I tore each page I wrote and fed it to them by hand.

They ate reluctantly.

The more they ate, the more they grieved,

Red tears streamed from their eyes.

They were now learning the pains they had caused.

They were burning inside.

All type of wars,

Those who lost their families,

Those forced to leave the lands where they were born and raised,

Forests wiped out for no reason,

Herds of animals perished in the fires with great pain,

Dogs poisoned when all they needed was affection,

The Orca who spent its entire life alone in a tiny pool and died,

All the undeserved suffering.

I was the foster mother of the universe.

I cannot accept any harm done to my children.

I was now pouring the heavy mercury from my heart onto those who had caused it.

The black mercury vapor surrounded them.

Some were on their knees, others had collapsed.

Yet I still felt sorry for them.

They were now tasting the pain of all the people, animals, and trees that had ever lived.

The world could have been a different place.

A place without the need for wars.

Where all the people of the world were truly one.

We could have fixed everything with compassion.

Love for what exists just because it exists,

And a purple compassion.

I left them there and returned to the real world.

I still visit that planet from time to time and look at them.

I give them cold water and delicious food.

I look into their eyes.

I want to embrace them,

(but I don’t).

After all, they are still human.

But those who have made charlatanry their character will not learn.

For them, pain is just something to exploit.

They rise higher on the salty seas of tears.

For them, it is money, ego gratification, fame, and power.

So why should they change?

Because of who they are, they are condemned to that barren and desolate planet.

It is foolish to be angry at a scorpion for its ability to sting and kill.

But it is human to be angry at those who play with fire and scorpions,

 and cause all the doves to be stung.

Eurovision 2003

Sleep slipped from my eyes, but I held on,

For the first time, the home within my chest

Opened its doors to the world’s vast windows.

The TV was live,

And I was on the verge of a midnight discovery,

Twelve years old,

tasting the first breath of freedom.

Smiling faces, words laced with warmth,

Every five minutes, a new land, a new tongue.

The world was bigger than I’d ever known,

A truth I first glimpsed in 1999,

When I learned that kindness is a universal language.

This was my second revelation,

This time, to the universality of art’s grace.

It was the 2003 Eurovision,

Sending waves of beauty from the screen to my heart.

Sertab Erener was poised to begin,

And my hands trembled with anticipation.

It felt as though I were the one who’d sing and dance,

Would I ever be as free as they were?

Would my creations find applause?

At that time, all I wished for was to write,

To give life to stories like my first,

Where “April Kelyword” came to life,

A name born from the books I read,

The films that filled my dreams,

A name invented by a ten-year-old’s imagination.

Now, when I look back,

I embrace that confident, dream-filled little writer,

With a smile that echoes through time.

The blonde dancers beside Sertab,

Would my body ever grow to be like theirs?

I didn’t wish to be thin,

But to possess the grace, the femininity,

The elegance that they embodied.

To sing with such abandon,

But most of all,

To write words that could be sung.

When the dance ended, the applause rose.

Inside me, a pride that made my hair stand on end,

Hope, and curiosity.

I stayed awake until the votes were tallied,

My mother stirred from her sleep,

Peeking into the room where I watched,

Her voice soft with drowsiness,

“Aren’t you in bed yet?” she smiled.

“Not yet,” I replied,

“The winner hasn’t been announced.”

I fought sleep a little longer,

And my favorite claimed victory.

For the first time, I crawled into bed,

With a peace that I could recall so clearly,

As the morning birds began to greet the dawn.

Inside me, for the first time

The realization that all people,

When they smile, when they thrill,

Are bound by the same thread,

Settled into that peace that cradled me.

Now, with the eyes of my 33-year-old soul,

I watch Sertab’s performance once more.

Though I’ve seen it countless times at different ages,

This time, I understand,

My younger self witnessed it live.

Each time this video plays,

I am there again, twelve years old, watching.

It’s not just the artist and dancers who bridge time,

I am there, too.

My feelings are real,

My truth.

How strange, this shared moment across years,

Both my selves, linked by the same surge of joy,

The same applause.

Art binds us as one,

Creating me in that moment,

Even if no camera captured it.

The lens of my eyes etched those feelings,

Those lessons deep in my heart.

They are always there,

And they are always with me.

Hot Chocolate Mind

The warmth of machine-brewed hot chocolate,

A delightful elixir from a mechanical hum.

The overwhelming sweetness inside whispers,

"Gaze not with your eyes, but with the wisdom of your heart."

Do curtains block the joy sent by the sun?

The magical green sea of leaves

That dazzles your eyes,

Waves through rain-speckled glass,

A great smile upon their branches,

Amidst the murmuring voices of people.

Who truly notices you?

Is it the tree that will stand for centuries,

Or the hurried souls rushing by?

Human bodies everywhere,

Faces missing.

Clad in identical clothes,

As if handed out for free,

All wearing the same brands.

When was the last time you felt

The cold of a stone table beneath your hands?

When did you last inhale the damp, rainy air,

Without question?

When did you last drown in curiosity,

Like a dog thrilled by discovering froglets?

When was the last time you cried

For reasons beyond the reach of words?

When did you envy those lacking the capacity for sympathy?

When did you last covet the luxury

Of their indifference to the world’s pain?

In this world, people are divided by just two things:

The enlightened, whose souls outshine their bodies,

And those who are merely bodies.

Which one are you?

Isn’t everything more than just black and white?

Perhaps humanity finds comfort

In wandering through the greys.

Did you find pleasure

In letting a car, long stuck in traffic, merge ahead of you?

Or was it in flooring the gas,

Denying them, feeling like a “tiny god”?

Was joy found in the countless blooms

You saw on a woman’s face when you complimented her tattoo?

Or did happiness lie in pitying her,

Judging what grief might drive her to such things?

In this life, where every soul climbs

Its steep hills with unique wounds,

Striving to grasp its own truth,

Where everyone has their own version of right—

Did true happiness come to you

When you learned, deep in your bones,

That you have no right to judge?

Echoes of the Universe: A Reflection on Humanity's Paradox

I carry the entire universe within my heart.

Oceans that reveal infinity,

Ancient and wise trees,

Leaving marks upon your clothes when embraced,

Winds that tousle your hair like a playful elder brother,

And creatures in perfect harmony with their own rhythm.

My eyes are windows to nature,

Illuminating my own inner world.

The universe does not whisper its secrets to me,

But instead, it sends me images—

Mischievous, wise—

For me to ponder and discover.

My monologues with the universe

Gain meaning in proportion to my capacity and openness to see.

In this world, nothing is as painful

As the “developed primitiveness” of humankind.

The burning sting of a wasp that, in childhood,

Struck my leg out of self-defense,

Does not burn as fiercely as human greed and self-interest.

How is it that we, who take pride in the civilizations we’ve built,

See ourselves as the superior creatures of this world,

Yet cause the most harm to the earth,

And even more to our own kind?

This so-called advancement, perhaps,

Is nothing more than the cry of our most needy,

Most raw, and most insecure corners.

And when the cry subsides,

It transforms into a grand illusion.

The curse of greed blinds,

Reducing humanity to something even smaller,

An unfinished creature.

Perhaps those animals we look down upon for not building civilizations,

Refuse because they are morally superior to us?

Perhaps their souls are so content,

That they have no need for civilization,

No need to understand or to explain.