Nocturnal Journal #7
Fiction & Poetry Newsletter by Ecem Yucel
-Poetry-
She, Who Walks the World Through the Night
She sticks out her tongue
and tastes the night
that curtains her surroundings;
rolls and savours
the honey flavour in her mouth
for a precious moment.
Night’s flavour goes to her head
and gets her drunk.
She strolls in the starlight
with no aim, no direction in mind,
as the memories fill her dizzy head
and spark her heart
which has long forgotten
the melody of life.
Something slips out of her hand,
and drops on the ground,
silently, in slow motion;
a long-stemmed, red rose.
The velvety petals of the flower
sigh as she glides away
and leaves them behind.
She reaches to an immense lake
that drowns every light, every colour.
When her feet touch the water,
a man’s soul, so far away from her,
shudders in his sleep.
She wants to sing her song one last time
before all the stars set in this place;
as the trees listen to her chant,
the moonlight braids her hair.
Her song is a requiem,
telling the story of her:
she, who walks the world
through the night,
longs for her share
of sunlight.
When her song finishes,
she walks into the lake,
cold water rises up her legs
with every sorrowful step.
She tells herself not to worry;
she’s about to enter
the land of old dreams.
The water is now chin-high,
her eyes, her lips are
about to sink into oblivion.
She looks at the moon,
her hair, her eyelashes
are burning with dreams;
she sinks.
The man’s soul shudders again,
waking him up:
everything’s sad, everything’s cold,
everything’s dark.
He cries for someone
he doesn’t even remember
loving.
By the time he stops,
she’s long drowned.
-Fiction-
Purple Morning Glories
When she was ten years old, one of her favorite things to play with was purple morning glories. She would pick a few of them, both buds and bloomed ones, then go, sit at a corner in the big garden of the building she lived. She would take a bud and pretend as if it was the plain, poor Cinderella, who wished so much to bloom one day and meet her prince.
A bloomed morning glory, which she held upside down so it could resemble a gown with a bell-shaped skirt, would come into play as the mother fairy. With a bit of invisible magic and sleight of hand, the bud Cinderella would trade places with the most exquisite morning glory among the picked ones. Becoming the prince, another bud would greet Cinderella at the ball, and they would dance all night.
Soon, she would avoid picking the morning glories. She wanted the buds to blossom and grow into Cinderellas by themselves. She regretted picking the flowers, playing with them like dolls, and throwing them into the small, decorative pool in the garden when her game ended. The big, dirty, and iron-hard hands of a stranger on her tiny, child body taught her what it meant to be picked up violently, played with, and being thrown aside without a care. In this most violent hour of her life, she cried rivers, but not for herself. Being a morning glory, she thought as she cried, was the most painful way of living.
Years later, at night, with the horror of her childhood carved into her skin, she walked to a beach nearby. She was tired. She hadn’t been able to bloom as she was supposed to, no matter how hard she tried. In real life, there weren’t any divine hands to change her into a blossomed flower. She’d always remain a bud that someone carelessly nipped that one time.
She walked into the sea. The salty water embraced her, finally lifting her body up to the surface when she couldn’t feel the ground under her feet. She floated on her back for a time. As she was dragged farther from the beach, the cold of the water reached her lungs. There was something comforting in knowing that she didn’t have to try anymore. That the end was near.
Just as the purple morning glories I threw into the pond, she thought.
Thanks for reading! If you liked this issue, a like and a comment goes a long way. :)
If you’d like to read more poetry from me, please check out my new poetry book ‘The Anguish of an Oyster’ here.
You can also check my website for more information.
Such tragedy and hopelessness. You write it well.