The Phony Curve Poem by Muzaffer Akin (VAHA)

Perhaps I love to dance
without a touch, without a tether—

Stripping sorrow of its chemicals,
I choreograph clean sadness—
Is that not love, too?

Or maybe—
I crave the madness, blood-bright,
where grand desires collapse
into counterfeit longing,
and you, at last,
know you never loved me.

After the pleasure of drowning
in wasted lullaby-water,
I turn the Moulin Rouge wheel
with borrowed buckets—
alone,
in soundless still.

Perhaps I still believe I love you—
a superstition I feed
from the REM of my unrest.

I ferry empty thunder
back to days long gone,
on advice slipped between freighters
in fog.

I arrive like tremors—
sudden, faultless.
You flinch at morning prayer,
your self-confessions
reaching level eight.

Maybe
you mistake your verses for whetstones,
sharpen yourself
as if to summon the sea back.
Maybe you long
for the red tundra again.

You slip—fast—
from northern discipline,
and I dream you in duel:
foil raised,
a kiss just beyond blade-length.

I watch you from a distance,
a Bollywood specter—
Nargis,
Raj,
and the gleam of the chassis.

A tribute—
to stars of Awaara,
flickering past.

And I watch—
your frame collapsing in the wild,
your tears
lifted
to a silent God.


Muzaffer Akın