Hayat Bana Yalan Söyledi

Life Lied to Me

For the first time I'm facing myself
It's strange, the pen, the paper, and you despite all my love
I'm writing to you for the first time
Now you're not here, there's only thinking of you
Even as a child, I would think of you every night
I would listen to the radio, write poems
Every Wednesday we would go to the market with my mother
We would eat baklava when my father got his salary
We also loved ice cream
My sister would have three scoops, I would have two
That's why we would fight
Yet my sister was the most important person in my life
Her face never smiled, she ran away with a scoundrel and ruined her life
The darkness of that day never leaves my mind
Since then, I've grown my sorrow, not myself
A child still cries in my eyes
The clouds I used to dream on were the longing of a seed for a flower
And my mother's voice still echoes in my ears
Finish school, get a job, they said
It's true that poetry doesn't fill your stomach
Look at Cemil, he studied and became an engineer
He married the most beautiful girl in Uskudar
He bought a house and a car
While I played the baglama in my own way
They said my voice was beautiful
How could I have known I would always sing sad songs
Life lied to me

I used to write letters to my brother in Germany
I promised I would finish school
In that most exiled island of my innocent dreams
Songs that gazed into the distance
And like a flower that withered out of season
How hope is crushed underfoot
They stole my sunshine in the same way
They took my joys captive
They counted every day I spent without you
Now those days when we drank tea and ate simit seem so far away
The days when I made a kite as a report card gift for your brother seem so far away

Yet the flutter of a sparrow on the eaves pecking at a bread crumb
And loving you as sincerely as a mother's prayer
At Fener Stadium during the Besiktas match while our poverty continued
I had given you all my blues
It felt like losing was written on my forehead, it didn't work out, my dear
Life lied to me

When your father got transferred and you left that winter
We had put claws on our shoes again
I couldn't tell you, but my father had quit his job
The restaurant where he worked had closed down
His shoulders would slump more during payment times
And the evening trains' tracks would seem longer with the fatigue of workers
Even my complaints found joy in life
An angry volcano had awakened to rebellions
And you were no longer there
Yet only you had kissed my eyes
A part of my childhood always felt incomplete
Actually, every person was a bit defeated by life and a bit resentful
When we missed the last train, we would be stuck at the final station
Tired and sad
That's why I'm hostile to myself
Always regretting myself
Now everything is incomplete
I've long forgotten what I wrote behind your photograph
If I had a gun, I would have a gun
I would shoot poverty in the forehead, loss in the heart
And loneliness right in the middle of the forehead
Fake feelings were not my currency
I was the storm of distant seas
The partridge of snowy mountains
I was poor despite being poor, but I was honorable
Now neither you nor those old loves exist
Even if this deaf darkness collapses on me
Evening comes for poets, a new day dawns
You once said to say it just once
I couldn't say it then
Now I'm saying it
I Love You