THREE POEMS BY SARP SOZDINLER

Impression of a Graph Showing Annual Deaths Caused by the Titanic

planethood

this user
would like to know
what a black hole
looks like from the inside

this user knows
real monkeys lack
the randomness
required to type like
Shakespeare, but still
appreciates the concept
of infinity

this user believes
cucumbers and watermelons
taste the same

this user says
let’s just change
our clock by ½ hour
and forget daylight
saving time
for good

this user misses
pluto
may its planethood
rest in peace

this user is imprisoned
by parental controls

this user has
no personality

tarnation

The online ad read, don’t let pain define you,
your movement, and I said WOW ok
rude. It was two in the morning.
I imagined if Renee walked in
my face would look all lit up
by my phone like a deer caught in headlights.
Everyone online was running across cliffs in their
shiny knee braces, smiling ominously
like pain hadn’t once touched them.
Mine arrived in a padded envelope
with all the wrong insignia on it.
I strapped the brace on and instantly became
a regional dad. I wanted to check the weather,
point at clouds. Explain mulch to whoever
cared enough to listen. Stand with
my hands on my hips in the
driveway of this midnight nation.
Did it help? the follow-up email asked,
Renee asked, everyone asked, and I said,
Sort of, yeah. Mostly it reminded me I
have a body, that my joints were not at
all fictional. My bones kept an itemized
list of every stupid thing I’d ever
done to them in flimsy shoes.
Every staircase taken like a skate rink.
Every time I stretched across the floor
to prove my youth hadn’t completely ran
amok. These days, whenever
I stand up there’s a whole overture
of vertebrae cracking inside my restless body.
Crackle, click, a brief chatter. Sigh.
Still, I’m happy that I can walk.
Still I go to the store and
buy limes I forgot I already had
in the fridge. Still I bend
toward the dropped spoon like
this small act could either end in a pearl
of wisdom, or a very small
emergency.

bio

Sarp Sozdinler is a writer from Philadelphia and Amsterdam. He runs The Bulb Region.

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next up on I MISS FLARF:
> two poems by Lucas Restivo

more from Sarp Sozdinler:
> 'Literary Beyoncé' on Dodo Eraser

Lucas' throwback:
> '12 Instrucitons' by Mårten Spångberg