ȶɦɛ ʀɛǟʟ ʍօʋɛʍɛռȶ

The veil shook me to my core. Suddenly my inner cogs were no longer in rust, rather an imprint of smile appeared on each of my cells which opened up the desire for a sexy scientist to look through the microscope and declare, with reverence, this is The Real Movement. The practice of my words was like fencing in a moldy stone castle — I had to be careful both with brute and grace. My posture changed, my rhythm started to know itself and how it moved along with the rest of the world. I wanted to reach a universal dictionary to have access to every portal of promise and appearance, to tap into the collective records of boundless wisdom and blow it effortlessly like a little girl does to a dandelion with innocent saliva mixed, DNA breeding possibilities of love, more love, love, love... World peace felt, for a ridiculous moment, like it might actually be located somewhere near the collarbones, tapping there and under your eyes to stimulate the blood vessels, to establish direct contact with your very own unfathomable living mechanism, to write what will be half-read in between someone's transitory yet somehow never ending half-lived period of life, maybe during a work break of oral fixation, a sinister distraction and a celebration of the schizophreniac feedback loop. Her’s and His mugs and masks; fake loyalty creating a kingdom of casualties, inner compass losing the edge of certainty and assertiveness for the next tyranny of validation. The harsh truth is that when the body thinks you are divided within, you become an insufferable person with all sorts of loathsome symptoms and over-extensions of petty breaches. Breathing is the only validation so I sing myself forward. Some say you don’t need faith for this. Just remember that every system, biological or digital, survives by exchange. Give heat, receive light. Notice when you’re closed, reopen. The smallest acts, making coffee, touching another wrist, looking up from the screen to the sky are maintenance rituals for the infinite. But faith gives you permission to answer those moments without irony. To say thank you into the air, not knowing to whom but sensing a face there. To act as if love were a law of thermodynamics, wisdom beyond your exhaustion.

Gulen Celik is a writer from Istanbul with a Los Angeles past. You can read her in Animal Blood, Hobart Pulp, Spectra Poets, Soft Union, and more!