A soul, creating

If a poem were a short story

watercolours ‘junkwoman’ by güzin ayan

We sit in a dimly-lit bar somewhere in the downtown. It is the early noughties. People can still smoke inside. On every hand, it is possible to see cigarettes with unceasingly fuming smoke communicating coolness as well as boredom, lust, longing, sorrow, and despair. You too. Beer is cheap. There is still a decade ahead for the right-wingers to gain power and enjoy imposing taxes on the secular’s freedom. Waiters are on the go serving pints of beer with a thick head of foam. It is not our first time there. We have been in that place a few times. With others. My mother and sister. Family outings. This time, it is two of us.  The occasion? I do not remember but it must be a happy Friday. Probably, we have been heading home from my boarding school, and popped into the bar on the way home. I am almost done with school. I am your grown-up daughter but I am still a daddy’s girl. In this role, I am incomplete, not fully myself. I give you the impression that you can still teach me things, and protect me. And you teach me how to drink sensibly. How to grasp a pint of beer. And to drink slowly so that when I break free from the monitored dormitory for university to live on my own, I will save my money, plus I won’t get wasted.

“Hold it this way,” you say raising your fist holding a pint. You tell me that the majority of people are right-handed.

“So what?”

“So, in public places, it is better to hold a glass with a handle like this, or let’s say a mug with your left-hand. Your lips will touch the less used brim of it. It is cleaner. More hygienic you see.”

“You are teaching me to be disgusted by people, dad!” I reply.

“You will be disgusted sooner or later, there is nothing wrong with being precautious.”

I feel an urge to talk about boys, but afraid of ruining the night, I keep it to myself. I don’t need another lecture.

The loudspeakers are scratchily spitting an old, sad song.

“Vincent, this is Vincent” you say. Your voice is boyish, almost too enthusiastic.

It is a song I don’t know. I find it blah, and I say it.

“Do you know Vincent Van Gogh?”

I say nothing, instead pull a face.

You point to the speakers overhead.

“Listen carefully, you’ll see that the song is about him, the artist.” And you tell me about him.

For a split second I see your younger self, a boy who cares about nothing but art and music, the one who still has plenty of time to have us, to cut his shoulder-length hair getting thin on the top, to abandon his jeans and get into daddy’s trousers, and to find himself in this family thing. And for that moment I am nobody, anybody, nor a daughter nor a girl, I am ahead of time, as well as beyond time, when everything is possible, like immortality, as if I am a pure soul travelling across times. Just like you. I will feel this later again when you and mom tell us stories about your youth, your life before you had me and my sister.

Taking it to the next level, one day you will take me to a concert in a huge stadium to see one of the bands whose records you religiously collected once upon a time when you were younger. It will be your first time seeing them play live. You will dress up like a boy and put on a printed black t-shirt with the symbol of ‘Peace!’ You will joke about your belly. “Peace is greasy, peace is greedy.” Generations will flood the arena, and it will take forever and a day to wait in line. You’ll itch to take up your place in the crowd humming and cheering. No one will stop you. You will carry your box of cigarettes with you and this time you will offer me to smoke one with you. I won’t come clean about the box in my bag.

I will fall in love with boys. I wish I could say once but sadly things won’t work. You know no relationship is flawless. Each one of them, however, will have something from you, and those little traits I gravitate to will be why I eventually fall for them. One will be as generous as you but not as firm. There will be another one who shares your passion but isn’t quite as committed. I will never talk to you about them, but hey, they will know about you, what you like, what you are like, and what might be your say on this and that. No one will stop me.

Later I will collect objects that will bring me a piece of you. Not in a possessive way. I will write objects poems on this and that, as if I have my own jukebox, and hey, they will know about you, about us. Without cease! A soul, creating.

Written and illustrated by Güzin Ayan

A Soul, Creating

To love a person
is to love his soul.
His soul, is what -
other than absence?
Absence is felt, 
deeply,
truly,
in real sense, and
by the presence.
Absence is real.
We all are going
to be absent. Peace!
We all are going
to be real. Without cease!
Are we all loved
in real terms?
We, the presence, creating
temporarily, while waiting
in line, to be
absent and real, 
as if.

The poem written by İnci Kartal

P.S. For this short story, I am inspired by ‘A soul, creating,’ a poem written by İnci Kartal, a close friend of mine. At university, we happened to be not only classmates but also flatmates. Since then, we have kept inspiring each other. She completed her MA in Creative Writing at the University of Westminster, London and has published books of object poetry. Please, go and check out her collection @objectpoetry on instagram and books on Amazon İnci Kartal. And I thank her for sharing this poem with me.