salt hunger
I am a very lucky girl and my life is one dictated by love and light. at night I breathe just as fine. I am a very lucky girl and when I bite into the apple I am rewarded with the seed that provides. I was watered nightly and my soils give bloom easy. I am a very lucky girl and tomorrow will be another day of sun.
ama şekerim beklediğimden hızlı düşecek. evin imar planlarında gösterilmeyen soğuk, mermer döşeli bir noktasından yatağıma sürüneceğim.1 writhing. I want your attention and the cooler half of a blanket. your cool feet on my shins. I imagine the park again, the half knee touch, and a new conversation. you speak from the machine of my creation. I sure do keep a bottle of military grade hand sanitizer in my bag. I sure do cancel our plans when I have cold sores. I sure do shower in the mornings and show up fluffed and breezy. that breeze in the park, that storm in your balcony, that whirlwind I wished would find a place on your wall, beneath the small printout of a single sentence that says “[redacted] – [redacted]”. in the morning I whisk my eggs with the funny fork and make coffee and apologize for the noise. in the morning I make coffee and apologize for the noise. apologize for the noise. I turn my routine into a show and when strands of my hair fall on the ground and create a quiet interval, I make the sounds. I call out different names and touch myself in the living room to liven the place up. I make the sounds. I imagine your life to be loud. I imagine the red line in gray dream in one dusty 2017. I imagine you know nothing of the such. I envy you.
small eyes, lodged deep. I carry with me a bag of sunflower seeds in case I don’t make it to the sea. before the sodium deficiency takes me. orcas have
small eyes, lodged deep. turn of events, they are kind. smarter than us. turn of events, they kill. they leave home. they find other homes. they don’t know what home is.
out of the subway, I take exit six, the new one, the exit that doesn’t yet exist. I take it and end up in rubble. chaos without a warrant. chaos without safety bands around it. construction zone. six men by exit six sit and have disgusting soda. I’d rather cut myself than ask them for directions. I follow the descent to get to the sea. don’t let the salt hunger take me before I make it.
I will make it.
a dolphin jumps where I fix my blank stare. dolphins are not very nice. I look away. no orca in such waters. no orca in my waters. fishnets and slimy baits. small hooks. we catch what we catch. I catch them catching the silver fish. no orca in our waters.
I don’t do well with this and that.
all this talk of death brushes over softer when you look it in the eye.
I’m a lucky girl. lucky I don’t fear it. sometimes stronger means mushier.
dry rough branches crack in the wind and swamps are forever.
1 but my blood sugar will drop faster than I anticipate. from a cold, marble-floored location in the house, one not shown on construction plans, I will crawl to my bed.
Born in 2004, Beste Yılmaz is a writer from Istanbul. She is currently an undergraduate student at Boğaziçi University, majoring in Western Languages and Literatures. In 2023, she graduated from Robert College where she received the Halide Edip Adıvar Prize in Literature. She has won prizes for her poetry and fiction at Koç Schools and the Tanpınar Contest. She is now the moderator of the creative writing branch of the literature club at her university. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Eunoia Review, Molecule Magazine, Third Coast, and elsewhere.