Dissolve

by Alper Yilmaz

​

She was hurt like the rest of us

Uncertain and anxious in a time

Where that sort of thing was in vogue

Where we all knew everything at once but also nothing at all

Nothing was off limits except disclosure of any kind

And God watched us chain smoking

Cigarettes outside the library with pupils dilated like black holes

Lonely chain smoking

Restless on a balcony trying

To remember a Buddhist story

That made suffering too much

Seem wonderful

Listening to jazz and wondering

If the stars

Would collapse and the future

Be postponed, our anxiety

Become ironic and outdated

Who knows

​

She had this awkward face with a charming smile

Her eyes always looked as if she had something sweet to say

We loitered in the present

Alive for fifteen minutes at a time living

Mostly in low-resolution

Black and white images of the future

Where all the meaning was

Hidden from us

It was hidden in a dream

It was hidden in the alleyway strange

Graffiti spray painted profound metaphysical truisms in cuneiform

It was hidden in the manic monologues of the homeless man peddling prophecies

On the street corner --- indecipherable

It was hidden

In our blood which was truly

Worth its weight in miracles

Martini glasses cling and shake

Haunting delirium

Served with an oz of gin

Visions of Godliness

​

The leaves are dying

It's November and Canada

Is receding we walk

Through dust and our footsteps

Vanish buried in memories

Drowning in hope

At the end

Of every book a moment collapses

Why can't we

Just dissolve

I screamed into the middle of night

And heard the ravens' reply

Saying the future is much deeper than we think

And I held her

Knowing that we felt the same depth

Beneath our dangling feet

Free falling through eternity

And falling

We dance.

Alper Yilmaz is a student of philosophy at Concordia University, Montreal. He is currently unpublished.