Poet: Işıl Ayça Akkuş

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A roof, a room, cooking meal

Oil spice and a cozy light

I travel to countries

Visit history and ancient ruins

I talk to people

Strangers friends family

Somehow this world

Still cannot contain me

Came here without my will

Relentless decisions

I had to raise this child

It is so heavy, down and hill

I count pennies then earn money

Get a bigger room

Maybe it is on the way, some company

Garden view

Away from death and shame

I run for so long

Yet still I don't belong

Something is missing 

Making me want to be missing

Making me want to end it all

No matter I try

Never a natural, always hard achiever

I seed dreams watch them grow

Then I watch them burn

Cause there is always candidate better

I love science 

Treat it as destiny, 

Only salvation from demise

My brain keeps producing

All in paper comes as lines

They expect numbers and figures

My words has no worth in the eyes

I aspire to work hard

When did I lost joy of learning?

Having no direction or idol

Just a wild sea sailing 

I seek approval, claps and glory

Yet I feel so fake in my own skin

No matter how high the ladder

It is always small,

No victory brings happinness

It gets numb, dark and thunder

I had never been so lost

Losing all spark, living with a ghost

Thus I list million falls

All the what if

Lossess loom larger than gains

First lesson of theory

I am getting erased in the maze

I don't know who she is

If not a scientist

I don't know who she is

If not chasing high dreams

I don't know where does she belong

Where is home to go back

Twenty six years

Still no trace of a place

Not forced, gently held

I try everything

Took every leap

Jump through each mountain

Yet when you are brave

Looking strong and fearless 

People assume you don't suffer

When you seem like living

Nobody guess the death under

One two three

I try every heart massage

Each time she comes back from death

Searching the old version

When you came too far

Swim for too long 

Raising all bar

A light so bright 

Attempts to shed on dark 

People don't see

How consumed you are

Hands in your neck

Suffocated, ridiculed, humiliated

By all of my wasted potential 

Cause each time I hope

It ends up being my end

My death is silent

Prolonged twenty six pretender

As I barely get along

Holding surface

Against stream pulling me

No one adds to the force

As I seem to be okay

Doe normal, no emotions hey

Me being the strong one

The brave, the edgy sharp tongue

Nobody notices

I can taste the soil in my mouth

The corpse buried

All promises undelivered

My death is silent

I high achieve the art of living 

I act so good, trick all that I am surviving

All my dreams crumble

Bruise my hand and fallen shoulder

I search for soup in ice cold winter

I search from the windows

Cats and impossible lovers

No sign of roof on top 

My soul is a stray

Believing a second last warmth

Never forgetting a smile

Stabs aching on my back

I jump through houses

Tragedies and happy endings

I cannot find her again

Grieving every day harder

Thus I create foes

Bleed scars from old wounds

My soul is a stray

A wet cat in the rain debt

I have thousand families in the world

You count the countries

Suburbs and mysteries

Thousand people my path cross

No sign of warm couch

Or a kiss on my forehead

I look to the sky

Searching a god to complain

This is my baby

It existed even before me

The slipping life essence 

White coats in cold wishes

This is my baby

It was my love

Even before you

The sunlight shining through

It kept me warm

Kept me here

Felt like I can belong

If I understand the other

This is my baby

I will keep my promise

Hold it dearly

Even if the weight is killing me

My shoulders leaving me

Be the mother

Be the father

Be a gentle lover

Be all you have not been to me

All the memories never given

The warm family forbidden

Be the sun, be the moon

Give me a careless childhood

A child so joyful

Be everything you have not

Be the luck, be the fire

Merge my broken bones

Redeem my frozen heart

My soul is in the streets

I am watching her 

Floating in the air

Spectator in my own life

Best and the worst person in the world

Like trier’s movie

I cannot merge her to anywhere

Sobbing on the floor,

Whose room is this

What am I doing on this tour?

I thought it would be cured

Having someone, or a bigger room to live

It is a never ending un-belonging

As if I put in this world

Unidentified object, rare

I change puzzles

Puzzles change me, 

Still this is no home,

I lie down under the sea

When my beloved goes away

Changes worlds, 

Lost in ashtray

When I wait for the only face I miss

as well as my orange baby,

visiting me while I am in a white dress

Seeking redemption

In a pseudo dreams’ hug and fiction

I am always cold as winter

Child of January, 

Never should have been here

It is not my will, nor my choice

I cannot end it, or enforce

I only walk in midnights

Nights walk all over me

I violently purrr to strangers,

Toe beans damaged kilometers

Pet the cat once, or be gentle

Even if you do not care

She takes an oath loving and loyal to protect

So don't pet at all

If you are not meant to stay

Cause she confuses fake socials

With real love trace

I walk, run, and jump

Arriving nowhere close

I only get invited to

Joyful families, feasts and tables

Guest actress, stray cat under

I talk, laugh, always make a joke

I pretend living so well

Even my death is unsure

Though I am convinced

I wasn't supposed to be here or there

Too big, small, aware

For my country, or old family there

Like that orange little cat

Only loved when it behaves

or perhaps kafka's gregor

you only worth as your work 

or the success they search for

I did everything right

follow the script, no drift apart

relations of states, wars and peace

politics of us, and psyche under

still I couldn't reach to that dream

cannot touch it, it is too far

I seek for evidence

Keep going, it will turn out better

no sign of sun 

I pretend living so well

My death and despair questions

Are you an imposter in our misery

it is invisible, witty and cruel

no trace is written in my face

my resilient figure and big jumps

thus I cannot make no one believe,

I don't call for rescue,

Going one battle after another

I recognize and hold pain so well

just because I carry it so well

I am the first one not spared

my self is a stranger

Only pretending a strength 

That I wished to never have

Only felt home once

When Arya was here 

We were making head bumps

I wrote poems and composed songs

When I was still alive with him

Smelling his fur

That white little paw 

Green eyes and oranges

Seeing me better than anyone

Loving unconditional

We were never left behind