unposted: Part 1

Kept busy by another year of schooling, I didn't do much posting. This is something I wrote while settling into Istanbul.

This evening the air is fresh warm and autumnal. I wander down the stones like I used to do in the Narnian midwest. Sulphuric and sweet, it curls into your lungs in a pungent promise of chemicals and carcinogens. 

Mandarins here have green skin and they’re tart and tender. They seep juice down a sore throat and it hurts but it’s delicious and the peel in your hand gives off a sour smell of chlorophyll.

Anchors drift away like they do and I wade through streams of othering, of subjects and symmetria. Let the rain cool my face and skin, rush past roses that smell like cologne and burning tobacco. One hand draped outside of the melancholy I breathe with the rest of the bodies breathe the smoke breathe the cold air bask in the antique musk of turpentine.

If I dig into the street I dig into liver on the sidewalk and every dog’s leftovers so close to your feet. Dig into the smell of roasting chestnuts into cigarettes and simit in the morning, grape mixed with sesame and slimy slices of sugared quince.

Pull the mattress off the ceiling to build nests, they watch, bemused. They’ve problems multiplying 6 by 7, angel voices and undiscerning approval, chain smoking by the ivy. I’ve stunted speech and strange habits flitting in and out padding down hallways with woolen toes. I order stunted, accented, stutters and sly eyes and crooked smiles. They make fun, speak in tongues and flighty as ever I lie lonely under the willow.

They babel in words that fall from the front of the mouth while I nestle in yellowing pages. I find glimpses of my Steinbeck in translated prose, pull hints at rebellion from cold Norwegianism. Cats circle our green eyes meet and spots form on my skin where the sun hits. Mottled from forearms to stomach my flirtation with gold left me fawn-dappled and shaky-legged.

Let me curl in makeshift houses sip from broken plastic and settle on tables where I’m not wanted. Let me crawl to the top of the city drop sugar cubes into cups and drink from scalding glass while I dangle my feet from balconies, descending glowing zigzags of lanterns like so many stairs.