Tag Archives: The Year of the Poet III

excessive now?

did one of them hit you in the heart again

do they already find you unnecessary

your shaky voice won’t let me be

 

with that beloved’s passing

last march had brought me my first regret

 

of having potted my roots here

 

my second followed today

 

when you almost apologized

for having lived this long

honoring your four siblings who died before you

adding how your youngest the only sister

still breathes together with her many grandchildren

whose longevity you then wished upon me

a faint hope for the women in our family

 

in all your ninety years

you grew up very little dad

loving but a self-centered man

high-maintenance

as the modern label goes

why did you have to catch up with it all

in one day

today

on the phone

 

i am not like them at all that you know

is that why you reassured me over and over

how well you are doing on your own all alone . . .

 

thirty years younger but i am unwell too many times

 

i also grew very little dad

loving but a self-centered one

perhaps not as high-maintenance

nonetheless a daughter of your essence

 

since the time our pillar collapsed

then much more recently

when you two fell apart

you have shifted to a deepness

 

he won’t come back he cannot

she however may return soon

it hasn’t been that long yet

 

why though are you in such hurry

with no fair warning in advance

but plenty of subtle goodbyes to me

 

are you telling yourself what i used to hear you say

“aloneness is reserved only for God”

please don’t you also rush while i’m so far away 

 

i agonize over your loneliness

how it befell upon you this late in life

did you really not hear me well when i asked . . .

 

they are merely a few blocks from you

yet choose not to be there

and you already stopped forgiving yourself

while you grant them forgiveness in abundance  

 

i just wish so very desperately

you wouldn’t have to hurt this much

that you could cease to grow up at once

 

and to forgive me for everything i couldn’t be for you

 

would you possibly throw in a sixty-year-long hug or two

hülya n. yılmaz, 2.14.2016

The poem above is one of the three I have submitted for the March 2016 issue of The Year of the Poet, a monthly anthology – now in its third year, published by Inner Child Press, Ltd. I am only one of the seventeen poetry contributors from the U.S. and other world countries committed to make this publication possible. Each month, also the works of three non-Poetry Posse authors are featured. All volumes are available for purchase at The Year of the Poet. 

Photo Credit: Self

Geographic Location: Ankara, Turkey

Place: In front of the flat where I have lived from childhood to the age of 24