Perhaps he's all I'll ever be—alone, shutting out the world, stubborn. With a packet of cigarettes that my child shares in silence. Perhaps it's all I can be.
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I was convinced I would go to hell and burn. Today, even as I don’t believe in Hell anymore, the fear of burning remains.
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How did an urban legend about a street in Istanbul named after a Japanese admiral turn into a gateway drug for fascist ideology?
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In Syria, while under siege and chemical warfare, under the bombardment of the Assad regime and US airstrikes, under Israeli occupation in the Golan Heights and ISIS extremism; Syrian women and youth hold onto creative practices that create a sense of belonging and love during a context of total death.
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I finally found a thread that leads from the land she came from to the bristled leaves that sprouted from it, to the grazing flocks of sheep that my grandmother tended and whose wool she shore, from there to the yarn she spun, and finally to a story told and recorded.
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There is something to food beyond the sustenance it provides. There has to be because what compels me to spend a copious amount of money at an Asian restaurant for some rice and a viand just to taste something reminiscent of home?
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27 days and I still refuse to eat. They give me a liquid solution to resist and live. And all I ask for is freedom for me and my family. Here is a summary of my story. These are my crimes.
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I lost my mother when she was finally turning a new page for both of us. I can't describe the feeling of disappointment, of chagrin that she left me with. Cancer stole that opportunity from me.
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Istanbul discourse is a dangerous quagmire of clichés, of which "bRidGe BeTweEn eASt aNd wEsT" is but one. But those of us who have lived here long enough are hyper-sensitive to the political intentions behind every statement concerning Istanbul.
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There is a cloud of doubt over us that can scare us from suggesting things we love to others, even sometimes to people we love. I hate that cloud. I should be able to drag someone to something I like and explain why I do so if necessary.
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Music has the ability to stay with us and it associates itself with a particular time period in our memories. Listening to that piece of music means reliving that moment again. Your body is etched in the present but your mental state is constantly travelling.
It is the story of when you are doing something wrong while failing to comprehend it, so you do it repetitively, you mess up horribly, and experience consequences. Besides that, this is a quirky and at times corny high-school fiasco revolving around 15-year-old Devi Vishwakumar.
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