Cagla Sokullu please

please

dip me in gold, dress my cheeks in rosé twirl your words ‘round the curls of a phone cord let them sink and bloom roses in my chest paint my skin crimson red with I adore. spell my colours on cotton candy clouds, make the wind shiver with their aftertaste. wander into darkness in silent towns and see what I find in stars who keep pace. pull me by the hand to the edge of you let me read from your old bruised paperbacks. show me where your heart is, swimming in blues color me with the sea where the world ends or, just call me at dawn ‘cause you can’t sleep and whisper I miss you as the sky bleeds

Cagla Sokullu Cornell University, ’20

They’re Not All Like That For a Friend

Throw on a black T-shirt and jeans. Go to a Halloween party thrown by a friend of your roommate, and meet her there, in devil ears and an outfit that doesn’t leave much to the imagination. Imagine. Introduce yourself, “I’m a transfer,” and she smiles brightly and takes your hand.

Don’t mind that you can’t hear each other over the music. Invite her back to your room, where she’ll tell you she loves the lights you’ve put up, just before she turns them off. Smile at her smiling eyes, in the dark. She makes it clear she’s having fun. Invite her over again, a few nights later, a few nights after that. Get a different response, the fourth time. “Are you ever going to ask to see me before 2:30 a.m.?” Take a daytime walk in the forest surrounding campus. Bring her back to the library with you, work with her legs over your lap.

Feel at home, for a change.

Watch her become your closest friend, the one who stays up so long to talk with you that you watch the sunrise together. Define the relationship, that morning. Neither of you calls this love; you’re friends. Hear her say that things will probably end when one of you starts feeling more strongly. Stop her there: you’d rather be just friends than friends with benefits but a risk of becoming neither. Be stopped by her there: she likes where you are now. “Don’t stop something that isn’t broken.”

Break. That is, Go home for the holidays, see your old friends and your ex, and reflect on how to build your life next semester. Decide, oh the horror to your high school squad, that this friendship is more important than the sex.

Tell her this, once you’re back.

Feel confident in this decision. Feel less confident when she doesn’t take it well, when she doesn’t try to hide the disappointment. And she doesn’t really stop, either. Respond to the cuddling and pecking, because it’s natural. Tense whenever she softens, when her arms knot behind your shoulders and you know she doesn’t see you as you see her. Don’t resist, though. [Did you think you have a choice? You don’t have a choice. She’s all you have.]

Clarify things with her again, far too late. And she’ll stop. Hanging out with you. Let the weeks pass. Not unnoticed. These things, living in a new school, it doesn’t get easier. Sit with the cruel irony, you the psych major, you the school helpline volunteer, be your own case study in depression.

Celebrate, then, when she reaches out again. She’s going to a concert, her friend canceled, come to the party she’s at and you’ll leave together. Consider, only after you get there, that you don’t know anyone there besides her. Let her drunkenly make out with you at the door. You don’t have the energy to say no. Then let her go off into the crowd. See her with another guy. That’s fine. You’re not dating. Turn away when she comes back to kiss you again, say no. That’s not fine. You’re not an object. Be pushed away. Be stared at, by someone with no context, an unfriendly eyebrow raised, what did you say to her, creep? Be glared at, when she does this twice more. Step outside, catch your breath. Glance when she comes out with a different guy and starts kissing him. Sink when she keeps looking at you. Eventually even he notices, and freaks out, stuttering an apology. Reassure him that it’s fine. It’s not, but not for anything he did. You’re not dating. Go back inside.

Be found, told that she ordered a car. Get in. You deserve a show, and she seems like she’s sobering up. Be corrected. Be interrogated. “Why don’t you care about me anymore?” “Don’t you like me?” Be straddled, strangled, constricted. She’s no different at the concert. Stay silent until she finally abandons you for another guy, until you stop getting looks. Breathe, or don’t. She comes back to you worse, and you submit yourself to what you know will happen. Tell her “we need to go home.” Swallow,

be molested in the car, her hand pushing against your crossed thighs. Blink as she tells you she won’t remember this in the morning. That’s her only apology. Don’t resist. Don’t use force. [Remember the years you trained for a black belt? You’re not allowed to fight back. You’re not allowed to do anything but get her home safe.] Pay the extra fare, stopping at her place then yours. Sit there, on the floor next to your bed. [Good thing your roommates aren’t here.

Good thing no one is here that you can talk to, that you can’t call your own helpline without someone recognizing you. And what would you say?

Nothing happened. You’re not a victim. You don’t get to be a victim.] Wake up, sleep, wake up. It’s 6 A.M., it’s 6 P.M.

Never say the words, never with a straight face. [You don’t get to label what happened. You don’t get to say any more about it.]

Jonah Goldberg Washington University in St. Louis, ’22