Monthly Archives: December 2014

off it goes.

***

le temps, la lumière; toujours ce rappel de l’éphémère, de ton corps qui se métamorphose lentement en un autre corps. ce corps ne te sera jamais étranger, puisque tu t’y familiarises au fur et à mesure qu’il se transforme. tu aimerais parfois te retirer de ta matière et t’observer changer, en retrait. après un certain temps, tu rapatrierais tes formes en y glissant ton esprit comme dans un gant neuf. tu manierais ta peau afin de l’attendrir, puis tu épouserais les tréfonds, sans doute, avec cette complicité qu’ont les étrangers heurtés d’un coup de foudre.

j’aurais pu rester longtemps à paris à ne rien faire, mais il faut souvent partir (et partir souvent).

***

je n’aime pas avoir froid, comme ça, le matin. je dors dans une robe noire; je me réveille et me couvre de laine, de cotton; mes cheveux tombent sur ma nuque et me réchauffent. dans mon oreille droite qui grésille j’entends mon corps qui tente de se délester de ce malaise, mais je suis fais de glace et je peine à fondre.

you’re just not leaving me enough time to catch up with you, sun.

i don’t know who you are.

i don’t know why i picked you up.

i don’t know why i paid 1TL for you, and i why i keep you in a pile of other found photos.

i will not write a story about you. i will not discuss the knee-high socks, the chair, the round faces, the white collars, the painted nails, the time on the watch. i will not tell you to take a look at the vase and the silk flowers, the porcelain pieces, the encyclopedias, the leather strap around the ankle, the 1955 inscribed in black ink in the top right corner. i will not speculate about the father, so clearly missing, and i will not mention the black dress and the wedding ring.

november lost in little glass jars, sprouting words and things.

***

as with every other girl from her generation, she owned a small pink jewellery box. the outside was covered in soft, faux velvet; the inside was cushioned in soft, faux satin. when she opened it, a dainty ballerina spun on herself—a pirouette, in fourth position—, to a familiar music box melody. there was a minuscule, oval mirror behind her, and as she danced it seemed as though she was only dancing for herself. eventually, the music stopped playing and the ballerina lost her will to twirl.

the girl never kept any jewellery there, for she was just a child, and the jewellery she wore was on her at all times: delicate hoops with turquoise stones; a thin, perpetually tangled gold chain; copper barrettes. in her jewellery box, she only kept a perry ellis perfume sample she had torn out of a magazine. she rubbed it on her green wool sweater and her wrists frenetically before she went outside, eager to please one clueless boy.

she doesn’t remember when she got the jewellery box or when she lost it. it was one of those things that were a part of her childhood, until she was no longer a child and it was no longer a part of her. as she grew older, few things followed her around—a panda bear with a glued-on nose, a pierrot journal that no longer locked, paintings and drawings her mother had stuffed into a worn-out box.