A speck on this land

I walked along the road, blocks of flats on either side unusually multi coloured for this area, it was always lively. Through the cracks between them you could see life streaming out, usually children, who incidentally owned the road. If someone drove through disrupting their street games, it would get a light kick, with the owner chuckling, knowing these “dangerous” streets, he would then reverse and take another route. 

It was a happy place and it wasn’t lost on me that it led to the graveyard which was also a happy place, it took death very well. The people were left alone, Mehmet “The Soda Seller” and the self-declared “Genius” could just grow wild, never cut or tidied up, they stayed the same as when they were first laid, it was comforting. I planned to cut through and walk-up hill to the bench but decided to go up the road then cut through, I was a mixed bag of physical illnesses.

When all is lost, I take comfort in the dead here. A certain butterfly always flutters around Vasfiye’s grave, as it did today. A raven perched proudly on Osman’s tomb and the sweet hum of insects and birds blending with roses and lavender made me forget the charred ground or my life. Slowly, however, the dark tree fella crept behind my eyes, blocking the sunlight, its branches around my throat. Like a recovering heroin addict, I tried to erase it from my mind. “Not here.” Arrests, commissions, dark words, hopeless faces, lying eyes that was death, this is life. There were birds sounds I didn’t recognise, an old man bowed extremely low to greet me. The grave digger waved, he knew me. 

I would have to take shelter; our beach in the morning sitting on the sand, the waves meditating them away and of course they will pass my way, seagull, raven butterfly and YOU.