someone has to leave first. this is a very old story. there is no other version of it.
rien ne va plus - margarita karapanou / ghost, zero, suitcase, and the moon - richard siken, beginners (2010) dir. mike mills, glue - richard siken, beginners (2010) dir. mike mills, the absolutely true story of a part-time indian - sherman alexie, tumblr user lalallorona, fuck it i love you - lana del rey, the worm king’s lullaby - richard siken
My grandfather died and idk. Its hurts in a way i cant describe. I wasnt always fond of him bc he is kind of conservative and definitely favored my cousin over everyone else but there were so many moments where he deeply cared for me like no one else did.
Like when i said id love to go to the mountains we literally went the same day and the day after.
Or making sure the tv in the room i was sleeping in actually works while not caring if it works anywhere else.
Or when he picked us all up from the airport he would always ask us what we want to eat and not sit down until everyone had something to eat even if its just a slice of bread (tho he would kill us for just eating that and nothing more)
My grandfather was a hardworking man always caring for his garden in his village (we spent most of our time there) he planted several vegetables and had apple and cherry trees. He would wake up early just so he can work around, build us a hammock, prepare the inflatable pool when it was hot outside, plant flowers so it looks nice, drive the extra mile to get us whatever we want.
And now hes dead
He suddenly fell ill and we found out that its some type of cancer. I visited him 2 months after the diagnosis and he was so skinny and so fragile just looking out of the window we werent even allowed to hug him. It was really hard for him to talk or walk or eat or do anything. My hardworking grandfather became a man chained to a chair.
He just became skinnier and skinnier, the medication wasnt helping so he changed it, the new one wasnt helping either so they started chemo in January. That when they said he ll only have four months left to live.
My mother showed me a video of him in the hospital. Even skinnier, no hair bc of chemo. My father crying in the background. My mother had to go to türkiye several times for several weeks so she can help. At some point he had to wear diapers and be fed because he was too weak. I remember being angry at my family for having my mother leave me with my sibling but now i regret nothing more than that it was so selfish of me to say and think that.
On the 19th this month my mother suddenly left to visit him since his condition got really really really worse and just at 1:10 AM 20.02.2024 he died in the hospital.
My brother woke me up to tell me he died i begged them to let me go to türkiye so i can visit his grave and when my brother left the room i looked at the ceiling and started crying for hours
I had to take a later flight than all of my family members so i was flying alone and i cried all the time. I cried and cried and begged him to forgive me and cried and cried and then i was at the village he grew up in, where i spend all of my summers. I went into the house he built for us with his own hands but he wasnt there. I hugged my aunts and uncles and my grandmother and lastly my father and i just couldn't do it anymore.
I had to think about my father and his sibling who just lost their father.
I had to think about my cousins who grew up with him until they moved here and even called him father.
I had to think about my grandmother who had lost her husband of 55 years.
He wont ever pick us up from the airport again
He wont ever protect me from anyone
He wont ever drive me to the mountains
He wont ever grow the best cucumbers and tomatoe ive ever eaten.
He wont ever just walk around in his garden doing stuff since the sunrise.
He wont ever repair stuff we broke.
He wont ever just sit there and watch us have fun.
I wont ever see his face again.
I wont ever hear his voice again.
I saw his grave and there was no tombstone it was just a big pile of dirt with two big stones indicating where his head and feets are. They told me its tradition to wait for the dirt to completely settle on the ground before getting a tombstone which only made it harder to realise.
This year already started horribly and its just getting worse and worse and worse and worse and
wound. salt in the wound. salt in the wound. salt in the wound. lick. lick. it crystalizes. it leaves trace where i go. it heals. it doesn't heal. it becomes a new skin. it hurts. it turns to a wound again.
Ada Limón, "The Good Fight" // Margarita Karapanou, Rien ne va Plus (trans. Karen Emmerich) // Richard Siken, "Little Beast" // @normal-horoscopes // S.K. Osborn, "A Hunger Like No Other" // Richard Siken, "Wishbone" // Forugh Farrokhzad // Sylvia Plath, "Dialogue Between Ghost and Priest" // Yves Olade, Belovéd // Yves Olade, Bloodsport
bones and all (2022) // Pablo Naruda // bones and all (2022) // Howl, Florence + The Machine // The Horror of Our Love by Ludo // Luce Irigaray, Marine Lover for Frederic Nietzsche // bones and all (2022) // Sofia Tolstaya, The Diaries of Sofia Tolstaya // Jen Mazza.