the endless line of y-shaped lamp posts

by Ecem Yucel

A memory from when I was a little girl and could fit in the back seat of a car horizontally. Upside down, through the car window, I’d watch the lamp posts planted in the middle of a double road pass one by one, sometimes fast, and blurry, sometimes slower, sometimes counting,  sometimes just looking at them with a blank mind. Back then, so innocent, I could afford a tabula rasa. A light would burn for each arm of the Y, yet sometimes only one of them was lit, or both out, and it would bother me just like the pillow under my head, which belonged to my aunt, and was filled with real bird feathers that would stick out of the pillowcase and jab into my cheeks, making me hate bird-feathered pillows for the rest of my life. The posts went on and on, hypnotizing, never an end to them in sight. Embodying itself as an imaginary friend, fear would lay down next to me, crowding the back seat, and whisper in my ear that we would never arrive where we were going. Are we close yet? I’d ask my mom. Just a bit further, she’d always reply. The lamp posts would go on and on, sometimes illuminating, sometimes dead. Fear would tug the hems of my skirt, fidgeting, disturbing, and I’d whisper back, No, no, soon, we’ll be home somewhere. 

Ecem Yucel is an Ottawa-based Turkish writer, poet, and translator. She holds an MA in World Literatures and Cultures and is a Ph.D. candidate in Translation Studies at the University of Ottawa. Her writing has recently appeared or is forthcoming in Cypress Poetry Journal, Wine Cellar Press, Alien Buddha Press, and Ayaskala Magazine. Her poetry book The Anguish of an Oyster is available on Amazon, Kobo, and Barnes & Noble. You can find her at www.ecemyucel.com or on Twitter @TheEcemYucel.