Two Poems
by Alara Kaplanoğlu

Sense

Being dead serious
(all my shirts have holes in them)

Accepting people doing inexplicable things
We’re all living lives we’re not supposed to be living
anyways

As happy as a lead singer
A sense that people are still interested
A sense that pigeons are actually blue
Sensing that no one is left in the city
Makes me feel like a peanut

I am afraid that I still smile while I sleep
That I’ll fall asleep in a dressing room
That they won’t accept my clothes
Or invite me to their weddings

Gazing out of a car window
Seeing yourself in a restaurant mirror
Modifying bodies
Two fetal positions
Four people having dinner
Gaining nighttime bar vision
Contact at a hillside diner
Towards bedroom flash photography
An agreement on maladjustment
A bus ride through a country
I have stopped recognizing

Maybe we can finally school our five year olds
Into believing something

Bump (Drunks)

Waking up one morning
my hands are a different color than my face
My father is a fatalist
and you
have an engine running inside

Become a bump on a log
Eat alone in a hotel restaurant
Fall in love with a body
and head down
once
all the air conditioners have sucked
the life out of you

There are many different kinds of drunks
and you are just another one!

Alara Kaplanoğlu is a former sea bird researcher from Istanbul. She can be found on Instagram @alarak6872