1999

by Nazli Karabiyikoglu, translated by Gozde Zulal Solak

Cleyton Ewerton

For Sezgin Inceel

This is what I’ve lost. I cannot find me That I’ve caught at the nostalgic flow. Loss of innocence, corrosion of the body, inner shames. Circling in thoughts, With a sense as regret for a moment, but no, never. Songs, Genres don’t matter, permeated, leaked, saturated in the moment And with all these images, my childish or adolescent mind, offenceless Unprepared, while thinking I can evaluate all these as part of social memory

I formed a team from the girls I gathered around for naughtiness. I formed a group from only girls not to resemble all that remains from us.

I chose four girls I kept in my mind when I observed in previous class Two of them were smart, one shameless, and the other was masculine, They were flexible with immature bodies and had a good knowledge of English lyrics, We gathered for the purpose of being a world-famous girls’ band, The first condition was hidden in the firm friendship bond, without blood We swore, one of them had huge green eyes The other had short hair, the other was blonde and short, I was the ugliest I thought so back then — what about now? I don’t know what they look like —

In the period of the tube televisions, in our middle eastern country When MTV India appeared, for Bollywood For hours we waited for the songs we wanted to sing In the remaining time from the ones who shook fingers, hands, waists and hair — When I was ironing, my mother let me turn the small television on —  I ironed the shirts, patiently, without looking at the crowd of dancing people. Long before finding my peace in Sinead O’Connor, Metallica or Jewel, I caught the melodies for our small band, lots of melodies Flawless and fast, slim waists, long hair, it had a harmony From the clothes of boys’ bands, I chose the most beautiful That caught my eye, to hew the band of five women out for ourselves I volunteered for the burden of ironing, choreography and dress designs included

In the autumn when we were twelve, in the garden of our school In the forest away from the city, trying to split our legs In a sitting, with a manner of proud gymnasts upholding their chins Beyond the oath of friendship Being conscious of pure unity excluded from the discourse, We started to dance, sing and picked a character, image and so A mood for ourselves. Cheerful ones didn’t mess with pale ones, Athletic ones didn’t mess with the ones reading book. We were a normless ensemble, we didn’t compare the colors of our pantyhose In that little dressing room. Arms, legs, neck, waist and hips How much grateful we are for our English teacher And the historian who taught us all these are functional And yet tempting as well?

Being one with the five and constantly repeating The body moves, small notes at physics lesson passed from hand to hand And in the other break — ten minutes — foretelling which move You’ll work out. Sweating buckets, hungry and thirsty In the breaks without lunch, far from the worry about whether The figures we repeated tirelessly make us resemble American women we envied, We enjoyed being synchronous as a group Yet, one of us — who knows which of us — offered To attend the yearend show, we all accepted eagerly I clapped, though I didn’t trust my gawkiness I said okay, to the bodies we united in ten-minute breaks And for the first, I trusted in our friendship that I learnt for the first time — at that age.

I rarely remember my falls into the abyss After all things. Puberty is hard, dark, pettish Ours is always more, how it has coincided with the friendship term That we gave meaning, thirteen year-old me, Petrified when I found her trying to suppress — to understand —  The betrayal of the friendship by the land and life

I formed a team from the girls I gathered around for contrariety. I formed a group from only girls to make us differ from the others.

Without changing our names, with the belief that — but — we can change the World, in the backyard of the school On the ramp, five of us split our legs in defiance of the slope  — legs firmly split, head backwards — we smiled although our inner-thigh muscles Twitched, we went on dancing with the Spice Girls’ songs Resounding from the little blue battery-powered radio

If I knew how much it would hurt after thirty years, I wouldn’t even Ask their names, I wouldn’t leave my English notebook for cheating, And I wouldn’t share my best stickers. If I knew How much it would hurt and if I could estimate how much I would miss No matter how many years passed, ten, twenty, thirty or forty When the mental memory stays in school gardens — during the Losses of innocence —

If I had the power of sense-making, I would take all their smiles, Voices, adidas stripes, pen holdings, the fingerprints Left on their mothers’ hair Even the excitements in rare moments When England started broadcasting after MTV India

I formed a team from the girls I gathered around for disparity. A group from only girls to make us differ from the others, I made sure nobody put ribbon on their hair.

That was what I looked for. Embracing without judging, while dancing Without finding bodies strange even they don’t look alike — without nipples, Without pubic hair, without plucking eyebrows Although our girlhood was imposed everyday I sometimes live the doom with shadows and winds Occurring at where we joined our androgynous legs We split with a snap, Chins upheld, breasts rose.

During the summer our English improved, During the first summer we felt obliged to like a boy, With our gardener pants, feathered hairclips At the basketball court that we scuffed our sneakers with thick soles, It was the last time I saw five of us.

My friend with long brown hair My friend with yellow flaxen hair My friend with short brown hair My friend with too short brunette hair — There was a move, three people did backbend, we tried it for five hours, It was so hot, there was solar eclipse, we watched it with the x-ray films We hold in front of our eyes, we neither held hands nor spoke meaningful words —

A few months later, the days will come when I scratch the walls, Peel my skin off from my flesh, sing songs one after another to turn back to those days I will learn how to write a letter, when I do a split thoroughly, At the night of that hot day, we worked tooth and nail To prepare for the big show of next year, to celebrate the ending of middle school, Leaving a trace in the school, county, city and country, The moment in slow-motion When the ponytails were flapped for the boys of the class Who came to watch us last time.

My friend with long brown hair, under the debris My friend with yellow flaxen hair, under the debris My friend with short brown hair, under the cracked road My friend with too short brunette hair, under the roof While overcoming the Big Istanbul earthquake From the rubbles, lights, columns, walls, just as I recklessly open my puberty, doing a split thoroughly

While swinging our arms over our heads, there was a move We belittled the audience with our chins, the complete figure That showed us like a divine form by two of us closing like a pyramid Upon three of us, legs split, on the floor. Welcoming the 4.7 earthquake by myself, I seized all of you in the film reel Of my short life.

Although there are many parts undiscovered, they threw their bodies In the same hole with their mothers, fathers and grandmothers. I grew up when I was displacing the earthquake-victim signs Stabbed on the gravesides after a few months by the municipality. Perhaps confidingly, I engraved all of them without lingering From the soil they died out, to carry them to the ramp at school’s backyard.

I formed a team from the girls I gathered around for a nameless rebellion, lined up on my tiptoe level from the girls whose faces I painted to make them differ from others.

---

Nazli Karabiyikoglu is a Turkish author. Fleeing oppression in Turkey, she resides in Georgia. She has authored several award-winning books, contributed to numerous magazines and journals, and is working on international publication of her stories.