self-portrait at 27

dreams fly off      into the future
I ran, fast, faster    breathless,always
I grab their tip, hold ’em tight    alas
they slip      I’m left
speaking to heavy rain

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I’m a writer

on&off I’m a writer       of the night
I sleep away, I dream of flying      I wake
when I’m dying      I read wars, jobs, cakes, skirts
daily
but not my words          they are kept
for the moments that by way of alcohol
they slip through my mouth
white butterflies against the sky     in the mornings
I forget      I’m a writer
then, stars come out
and my words are choking me

note to the girl in me

as you keep growing up
you will meet Fear

take him by the hand
and dance

dance, dance, dance
till-

The Story of the Palm Tree

I.

on a midsummer’s evening
she stretched her evergreen leaves
over the land she had been planted
feeling her roots tangling
as they dug into the soil
stumbling over little treasures;
shells and fossils and olives’ kernels-
silent tales of lives past.

she fed them with rain’s drops and care.

through seasons changing,
she’d gathered the history she’d witnessed wash ashore,
for everything came by sea
in boats of wood and heavy iron.
she’d kept some pieces folded in her stem;
the Ç she had taken by a green-eyed lady
the kay came out of the mouth of a freckled baby
and the ομικρον belonged to a language no-one spoke no more

II
just as she was admiring her jewels,
a breeze shuffled them around
giving birth to a word
whose sound
filled the air with hope :

Çοk

as tiny
as vibrant
as diverse
as the ground these letters walk on

yet,
there’s no doubt;
a very word of their own