The poem here has been shortened to cut the second half which is being kept private.
I was making my way through a feracious jungle,
Each step sinking into the cold earth,
Parasites leeching off my back,
Vines tangled around ankles,
Thorny weeds leaving scars,
Sly wanderers wearing faces.
I take in the oh-so-sweet fruits
Handed to me in my face,
Which briefly satiate
To only wound from the inside.
At a lush green desert,
In abundance suffocating.
I neglect to notice an oasis,
The refuge right next to me,
And a soothing tree in the middle of it,
With a story not unlike my own:
At the tail end
Of the first week of September,
Had her noble seedling sprouted.
Here she developed:
Pricked and shaken,
Barely a whimper,
In a state of late bloom;
She kept her petals shut,
Locked away and stuck,
In search of a light.
With roots gripping the earth
frail,
Asking for one drop to be spared,
She dared to simply take
A breath of air.
While she beat herself up,
For the lack of things forsaken,
With the sight of flowering plants
Hoarding the sky above,
Came a need for a hustle to catch up.
In the shadow with personal
clouds,
She pondered and observed;
What is the right way to navigate this world?
A weightless calm and a frantic
dread,
That both may well accompany drifting afloat?
Versus standing, shoulders broad,
On the one hand chained to a wall?
In a cyclical motion through the
spiral.
Progress with each setback.
Tired exhales became her breath.
Tears her dew.
Reflections light.
A process to take gloom
And convert it to exude bloom.
With perseverance through blows & qualms,
She came to wisdom.
A humble, keystone of a tree.
Spreading fruits for more trees to be;
Her embracing branches, and breezy leaves,
Just her presence in itself became an oasis.
(...)
Oğuz Kaan Aybak
