milky way

my defense shields were damaged on the way to andromeda, so i don't need the constant stream of jokes. unfortunately i figure it out. bothers me a lot. i could settle on a planet in andromeda and brew potato vodka, but i don't want to. i don't want to live a life like that just because i read about a cool way of being isolated in a story. 

i had played with puppets for hundreds of thousands of years. i had read for hundreds of thousands of years. i had the puppets perform my life story for hundreds of thousands of years; that's how i figured it out. over and over i played all my memories with all the people. i didn't like my story, not at all. but i have to introduce you to the most beautiful planet. i'm turning back for the rest of my story. i pull a u before reaching andromeda. other people's stories are bad too, the "unfortunately" part is here, unfortunately i don't even want to talk about it, but it doesn't work without touching their stories. even trying is a heavy load, admitting to yourself that you're alone is a heavy load, but how else could i have taught you not to be selfish? this is what settles right in me. 

worth it. 

i watch the messier 42, i think about the cows stealing grass from my plain, i smile. coming back to earth i land at cengiz topel. they think there's been another coup. a cop comes. commissioner i̇mdat. he doesn't seem to remember me. i invite him onto the ship, and over salted peanuts i tell him what he has to do. which space agencies he has to call, which intelligence services. where they need to set up the command center and so on. and he tells me salted peanuts can be made at home too. i show him how to fly the spaceship, we take a lap or two. an ahmet aslan song plays on the radio. 

i go to izmit. i watch the tree by the mcdonald's from a distance. a kid locks his eyes to me, i lock back; he waves and smiles. i watch an old man walking on the backs of his shoes, his old heel in a gray sock that covers most of his dress trousers. i look up, there's the sun. i narrate how i missed this planet. 

a week later the chevrolet suvs come. they take me home in a convoy. through the tinted window i watch my old self being put into the kangoo. i say goodbye to the agents. i go inside. after mopping up the shoe prints i tidy my room, because i left it messy again. dumped the work on my self of hundreds of thousands of years later. i brew turkish coffee in a french press and pour it into my pink mug. i look at the bottom right corner of my monitor. i create a new text document and start telling you why i named you haziran.