Dear You
The words are hesitant.
Fired in the experience-oven,
they make us take form
like water in a glass.
When we faced each other
on that table, speaking gibberish,
letters wearing the shadows, breath on,
dropping from our tired mouths
like vomit, we listened but did not hear,
we looked but did not see.
The moment I saw myself
in the mirror I knew it,
then I forgot
& that was 34 years ago.
The mirror though, it remembered
& showed me the constant change.
Through time as my roots grew
stronger, thicker, reaching deeper
in the black waters of my mourning
everything suddenly stopped.
The balance was off
when I became a star in the sky.
The time stretched legs
& we got blind
or it was all cosmic dust.
As you stared at that tree
in front of that window,
my roots touched yours
under the ground.
Although we did not serve them tea,
they were still here to stay,
the shadows I mean,
& the sun was there behind the clouds
though it was all gray
& it did not really matter.
Like flowers, your thoughts existed
only as long as their soil received
water & they were so beautiful
hanging on that sad ceiling window,
with strangers gathering
around to celebrate.
As you moved your hand,
heavy with all those lines,
the candle was silent.
With hair like a veil in front of your eyes
you hardly saw it,
but potentially sensed it.
When taking a step forward
through the curtain,
we heard the cracking sound
of radio-like ghosts
from the parallel universe.
We held hands
& that was it
—we arrived.
— Naz Cuguoğlu
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Tuğçe Evirgen Özmen is an artist working in video, animation and drawing. Her work delves into and portrays the impact of both conscious and subconscious on the development of perception, and the structure of language and identity through the lens of it. In addition, the artist explores the superconscious mind of existence, the liberation from the limitations of self-concept and ego, and examines the balance between these two self states. She graduated with a BA in Visual Communication Design from Sabanci University in Turkey and an MFA in animation/VFX/compositing in Academy of Arts University. She lives in Oakland and works in San Francisco.
ABOUT THE POEM
Naz Cuguoğlu is a curator and art writer, based in San Francisco and Istanbul. Currently, she works as a curator at Asian Art Museum.