I left home for the first time at age twelve.  I’ve lived in many places and in all those places, I carried my motherland in my heart. Now I write these words not in my mother tongue, Turkish, but in my adopted language, English. Perhaps this is the only way for me to distance myself from the weight of my emotions. Could I bring myself to write these words in the language my mother taught me as a baby? What was my first word? What if I had been a baby saved from earthquake rubble in the middle of a brutal winter?  If only I knew back then what I now know about life and living, would I have chosen to cling onto life with the strength of an innocent and ignorant juvenile? What I know now surpasses any child’s worst nightmare. 

Just like dreams, nightmares, too, can become real.

They say an Englishman’s home is his castle.

I am not an Englishman. 

I am a Turkish woman who was granted British citizenship after twenty years of living in the UK. Now, here I am living in Italy.

My castle has been my heart. I've been carrying it for a long time.  

When I was a child we could never afford to buy a house.

During the coldest winters of my childhood, entering our rented flat my mother would say: Evim, evim güzel evim. My home, my beautiful home.

Even though there was a feeling of safety, growing up in a big family with grandparents, aunties and uncles, I often heard, “Ana gibi yâr olmaz” -  “There is no lover like a mother”.

In every child’s heart remains imprinted his mother’s face. My heart is an atlas of the lines on my mother’s youthful face. My memory is like a dial tone heard in the distance. The streets I walked in my childhood, the air that I breathed, the hands that I held, the smiles that I received, the tears that I cried, the seagull ha-ha-has outside my bedroom window. And my mother's face.

My name and weight at birth, my height at age nine, my chickenpox scars, my blackboard terror, my quickening heart, the energy that runs from the synapses in my brain to my nerve endings, the music that I hear in silence, my rage and fury, why I became estranged from myself in my twenties, why I avoid certain people like the plague, why I hate voting but do it regardless, why I hate talking, why I can’t look people in the eye anymore. I found the answers to all these in books and in my heart. But there is a pain I cannot explain with words. For the most part, it’s indescribable. It is caused by the mountain of lies I’ve heard in all these thirty-eight years. It’s so vast that it could be considered a language in its own right. Most people speak their mother tongue and the lying tongue, they are fluent in both. I am a terrible liar for I cannot. 

In my dream, there is an island. It is small, covered with woodland, birds, a few houses dotted here and there. People go fishing there. I can see a little girl standing on the pier, holding a fishing line, hoping to catch gobies. She can see them swimming on the seabed, meandering betwixt the kelp. The island is but a dream. I went to the island a few months ago. It wasn’t there. There had been no natural disaster. Time had wiped it down. The way a teacher wipes down a blackboard.

Every now and then, I sing to my daughter this nursery rhyme: Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream / If you see a crocodile, don’t forget to scream / Row, row, row your boat / Gently down the stream, life is but a dream.

Dreams can become reality for the lucky few.

But, so can nightmares, for the many hapless.

The truth can be skewed but lies never. 

A lie is always just a lie.  

A lie is what hurts the most. It always gets you when you are weakest. When you are in need. When you have no choice. When you want to believe because if you don’t, you can’t continue.

Work six or seven days a week, 9 to 5 in dead-end jobs to be able to save a deposit, to be eligible for a 25-year mortgage on a 3-bed flat, advertised as a “a piece of heaven” . This is the best-case scenario.

Last Monday, “heaven” crumbled to the ground.

They say an Englishman’s home is his castle. Derler ki, bir İngiliz’in evi onun kalesidir.

I’ve seen “Englishman’s castles” burn down to the ground. Look up Grenfell Towers. 

İngiliz kalelerinin nasıl yanıp kül olduğunu gördüm. Bir bakın, Grenfell Towers’a.

And now, I’ve seen “heaven” crumble to the ground. Şimdi de, “cennetin” yerle bir olduğunu gördüm.

Yegâne kale, kalptir. The only castle is the heart. 

Ana gibi yâr olmaz. There's no lover like a mother. Olmaz tabii. Surely, there’s none. 

Yüreği yanmış analardan yâr olur mu? 

Can mothers with cinder-hearts still be lovers? 

Ölmüş analardan yâr olur mu? Can dead mothers be lovers?

Benim anam ölse, bana bir daha kim yâr olur? If my mother were to die, who could ever be my lover again?

Benim kızım ölse, benden artık kime yâr olur? Analar da ağlar, çocuklar gibi. 

Babalardan da yâr olur. Adam gibi adam olan babalardan.

If my daughter were to die, could I ever be anyone’s lover? Mothers cry too, like children. 

Fathers can also be lovers. Fathers who are also decent men.

Ama sözüm ona “politikacılardan”, milleti çarpan “mütteahitlerden”, “iş adamlarından”, rant geliriyle lükse lüks demeyen insan paçavralarından yâr olmaz, olmayacak. 

However, politicians, “contractors” who steal from a whole nation, “businessmen” and “human scraps” who live in unimaginable luxury with unearned income  can’t and won't be lovers.

Yılan bile bilerek sokmaz. 

Even snakes don’t bite without provocation. 

Ama bazı insan bile bile çomak da sokar, kazık da atar. Yet, certain people, they put a spanner in your works, they swindle you intentionally. 

Kimleri baştacı ettiğimize dönüp tekrar bakalım. Let’s reassess for whom we have been rolling out the red carpet.

Güvendiğimiz dağlara kaç defa kar yağdı? How many times has our trust been betrayed? 

Artık o dağlara güvenmeyelim. Let’s not trust what we are told anymore.

Cebimizdeki paraya güvenmeyelim. Let’s not trust the money in our pocket.

Oturduğumuz kalelere itimat etmeyelim.  Let’s not put our trust in the castles we call home.

“Cennet”in bile yerle bir olduğu bir dünyada soluyoruz. We are breathing in a world where even “heaven” has turned to dust.

Speaking of breathing, do you know about particulate matter 2.5 or 10? Take a look.

Nefes demişken... Parçacıklı madde nedir biliyor musunuz? 2.5 ve 10, bir alana iki boy. Bir bakın.

Bu kadar acı karşısında insanın beyni duruyor. Faced with such pain, the human brain stops.

Hey, baksana bana... Evet, sen...

Hey, take a look at me. Yes, you.

Herşeyi kadere yükleyen yüzsüz haşere.

You shameless pest who blames everything on fate.

Get down from cloud number nine.

İn, o çıktığın buluttan.

Biz buradayız.

We are here.

Yeryüzünde. On the face of the earth.

Yerin en güzel yüzünde. On the most beautiful face of the earth.

Belki yazdığımı anadilinde anlamazsın diye iki dilde yazıyorum. 

Ama şunu bil. Senin o yalan dilini asla konuşamam ben. 

I am writing this part in both languages, in case you don't understand what I have written in your mother tongue.

Just know this. I could never speak that language of lies you speak. 

My heart is an atlas of the lines on my mother’s youthful face.

Kalbim, annemin genç yüzündeki çizgilerin bir atlası.

Look, how you made heaven crumble.

Bak nasıl da toz duman ettin cenneti.

But you knew all along, there is no such place.

Ama başından biliyordun, böyle bir yer olmadığını.

You told so many lies.

O kadar çok yalan söyledin ki.

Who can count the grays in our hair now?

Saçımızın akını kim sayabilir şimdi?

Senin sevdiğin tek renk kendine yakışan, cebini dolduran, gururunu okşayan...

The only colour you like is the one that looks good on you, that fills your pocket, that strokes your pride.

Green is a nice colour, the colour of trees.

Yeşil güzel renktir, ağaçların rengidir.

Ama sayende, şimdi en sevmediğim renk.

But thanks to you, now it’s the one I detest.

Geçmiş yılların kahrını bugünün acısına katıp, yudum yudum, kana kana içiyorum bu hüsranı.

I pour today’s pain on top of yesteryears’ sorrow and drink this chagrin, sip after sip.

Çocuklar içmesin diye.

So the children don’t drink it.

Bu siyasi söylem, bu toplumsal baskı, bu ekonomik düzen, bu psikolojik hastalık sona ermek zorunda.

This political rhetoric, this social oppression, this economic order, this psychological sickness must end.

Bu zehri çocukların içmesine izin veremeyiz.   

We can’t let the children drink this poison.

Bir gün bu yeryüzünün tek vücut halinde bağımsız ve egemen olması umuduyla, kan çanağına dönmüş gözlerimi kapatıyorum.

I close my blood-shot eyes, with the hope that one day this earth will be independent and sovereign as one.

Affet beni, seni seviyorum, anadilim.

Forgive me, I love you, my mother tongue.