“I love you, I love you, I love you” 

SUBMITTED BY Rana Erden

I never realized how hard it was to say “I love you” in Turkish. I never gave it any thought of how derived it was from my touch until I found myself saying it to people I didn’t mean it to in English. I couldn’t comprehend how easily it rolled off of my tongue, yet didn’t evoke the same feeling as when there’s honey on my tongue or when I’m away from people I love – it’s those three words that connect me back to them. Just somehow thought it would be easier to say since it’s my first language. How could such a thing be so accessible yet so far away from me? 

I think I noticed the difference between the distances of meanings when I started reading Turkish poetry again and understood how much more convoluted it is. Those are the moments that make me think that maybe I was born with that love, and my purpose is to carry it around me to teach others. To try and tell you about the love poems and manuscripts that don’t make sense to you but make perfect sense to me with words that I can’t directly translate. This sometimes makes me think that the love that I have gets limited by words that I can’t say, but who would I be without all this love that bottles me up? 

“Seni düşündükçe
gül dikiyorum elimin değdiği yere
Atlara su veriyorum
Daha bir seviyorum dağları”

“As I think of you
I plant roses wherever my hand touches
I give water to the horses
I love the mountains even more”

– Ilhan Berk (1918 – 2008)