I know a version of you, you haven’t met. His eyes intensely fixed in mine, his body pensive and determined. He doesn’t search for reasons why not, he knows what he wants. His arms wrap around me like deadly lust stricken anacondas with no other choice than to take me…

I am just the bookend your neuroses lean on. I look at you from across the room because I can’t help but hear your inner dialogue. You are a transistor radio I just can’t turn off. It doesn’t help that you do that weird dance around me, never close enough, never far, never looking at me, never really looking away… Your struggle with saying a simple hello even frustrates me when it’s not downright hilarious to watch — hence my occasional smiles.

etched on a wax disk, a tune in a key only we know, played with instruments we imagined, we tuned, we learned. I press the pedal to sustain, I press the pedal to sustain, what’s fond can’t be held for long, we must learn to let it go, and in this we might find the reasons for trying harder to love each other and be good to each other every moment we hold each other as our own. E. Saglamer Jun 24 2023

In an ethereal universe of dust, we float on. Our shapes rough, dithering, edges frayed, defying the passage of time, a fight we are clearly losing. We find ourselves not quite special enough to be put under glass nor ordinary enough to be discarded completely. So we soldier on, past the safety of the meadow, and cross that bridge that is thinner than a strand of hair and sharper than a knife. We don’t falter, we don’t fall. We all make it to a home where we belong. It’s all a happy ending. And all happy endings are where a new adventure begins, yet to be written, wistfully left incomplete by the author of ethereal universe of dust.

I am writing the poems you were supposed to write. You had such wicked talent. I can only be a crude approximation but our story has to be told by someone. So I guess it’s me that has to fight the fight to get the words in the right order on the parking lot, lined up side by side to form the meaning of what was and still is ours. E. Saglamer June 25 2023

An exhibit for all to see at the museum Laid out proudly at the center of a room All white walls, one side door A placard explaining at length The significance of the stench coming from my carcass as it swells and deflates with poison air Hissing like a snake at passerby Slowly releasing the pungent grief Collected in my heart since that day In October you out of the blue declared you didn’t want a relationship, you didn’t want to date anybody. Your steel sky blue eyes now drained of affection stared back as mine welled up with lead shot tears threatening to flood this horrible city, A Purgatory for the Unworthy.

E. Saglamer

in this bed of doubts and fears I held close each and every one I whispered charms in their ears I took their troubles and gave them mine. We grabbed each other by the throat dangling over the waterfall of entanglement. Playing chicken among the tall pine trees a misty forest we dare not enter as kids now our home. Every day we took one step further deeper towards the dark end to see who would turn around first or go up in flames. We played our games along deserted highways cities forgotten by gods and angels we tried to win, we tried to come in first but found out at the end of that race The only trophies we earned Were our own broken hearts. . E Saglamer

My atlas of the sea Written in the colors of blue, turquoise and green Prefaced by you and yours truly, Lazy, stretched, cracked binding, left out on the table Under the palm of the afternoon sun Fading to a diluted shade of Linden tea In a room now destined to remain neither occupied nor empty. Just a distant voice in the corner reading a list of reasons why this all cannot be. -E. Sağlamer