Without Ever Reaching the Horizon

By Sarp Sozdinler

Now I am far, but one day I would like to love someone close, a tall person with laughter that climbs trees and eyes that change color with the sky, who wears shoes too big and leaves them at the door, I would like to love this person and live with them in a narrow house tucked between two train tracks, and in the house there will be one long table scarred with knife marks, three mismatched chairs, a jar filled with buttons, two tin cups, a chipped plate, a sewing kit, a clock that never works, some old pictures of our hometown nailed to the wall, a box of candles, one broom with crooked bristles, two pairs of socks always drying on the radiator, a stack of newspapers tied with string, one pair of scissors that only cuts fabric, and a book with half the pages missing, and every day this person and I will drink chamomile tea sweetened with sugar, race the trains as they pass, tie wishes to the clothesline, fold paper birds and send them sailing out the window, buy bruised fruit from the corner stall, draw chalk circles on the pavement, balance on rails until we nearly fall, collect stones smooth as coins, and write letters to people who is either long dead or never existed in the first place, every day we would do this and every day we would laugh at this and brainstorm to perfect our oeuvre, and every night I would press my ear against this person’s chest and listen to the words I don’t know yet, but the rhythm is steady like water in pipes, and this person I would like to love will know many things, but to me they will only tell the kinds that feel like secrets kept safe in a dirty pocket, and every night, over and over, they will begin with something like, “When the trains are gone, I’ll run you to the horizon,” and I will love love love a person like this, and every night I will be completely at home, I will be constantly nearing the horizon, running and running and running.

Sarp Sozdinler has been published in Electric Literature, Kenyon Review, Shenandoah, Wigleaf, HAD, Hobart, X-R-A-Y, Maudlin House, and Pithead Chapel, among other journals.

Art by Sarp Sozdinler.