August 14, 2025, Thursday.
Driscoll, North Dakota.

A person segregates from other people city by city, district by district, village by village, neighborhood by neighborhood in their own homeland, but if they meet someone from a neighboring country in a foreign land, they say, “Man, what difference do we have, we are the people of the same lands.” I remember, when I was a kid, if the path of kids from another neighborhood happened to cross our neighborhood, we would step in front of them, bump their shoulders, and start a fight out of nowhere. After all, that neighborhood was our neighborhood, we were a crowd, we were strong, they couldn’t do anything to us. Whether we were right or wrong didn’t matter, what mattered was that we were a crowd and strong. Whatever the White Anglo-Saxon Protestant is in America, whatever the Sunni Muslim Turk is in Turkey, we were that in our neighborhood. Then when I grew up, I saw that the white American first bumps the shoulder of the black one, then beats him up and makes him apologize. Truly, whatever we are at 7, we are exactly that at 70.

Well, is our conscience clear? When we reach prosperity, when we have no troubles left, when we want to find trouble, we remember such things, shed a drop or two from our eyes, and put our head on the pillow like that. A human without troubles is miserable. What keeps a human alive is their troubles. However, these troubles are the ones whose cure they can see on the horizon. If the cure is not visible on the horizon; let alone the cure, if there isn’t even a horizon, if everywhere is pitch black, if the sun has set, if the moon hasn’t risen, even if there will be light after a certain time, but you cannot see this at that moment; then the troubles kill you. Having drowned in that darkness, getting back out seems impossible ever again, you want to cease to exist, to get lost and fade away in that void.

Süreyya Toyran, Fikriye Özdinçer, and Zehra Aylin were among those who believed that the sun had set forever for them. All of this came to my mind when I walked into the Bosnian borek shop. In the homeland, we wouldn’t consider guys as one of us just because they lived two streets away. Seeing that a Bosnian opened a borek shop in Illinois, I feel like jumping for joy, walking into the shop, and hugging the guy saying, “My brother, you are one of us too.” This stems more from my love for borek than for the Bosnian.

Have you ever been a minority? Did they bump your shoulder while you were going on your way? Did you find a beating on the road while seeking your rights? I think Kurds know what these mean. I never knew, for example. I was always on the lucky side. I was born among the powerful. I grew up with those who had power. Whatever happened to our choices being the reason for the outcomes? Which of these did you choose: The place you were born, the time you were born, the family you were born into? Staying and fighting, or running away and saving yourself?

As a fugitive who fled to America, it would be hypocrisy if I said stay and fight. Run and save yourself, in my opinion. That’s why Ms. Özlem Çerçioğlu chose to run away and save herself too. As someone who ran away himself, it doesn’t fall to me to criticize this lady. I don’t know how many of you, if Escobar appeared before you and said “plata o plomo”, would do the crazy thing and choose plomo. I am in America because I chose plata. Özlem switched to the AK Party for the same reason. Anyone seeing this would think the mafia runs the country. Yet what does it have to do with it, right? Let alone the country, even the god who rules the world must be a mafia since he constantly forces us to choose between plata and plomo, what do you say to this?

I know, I know, there is no god. It is because he doesn’t exist that Toyran, Özdinçer, and Aylin drowned in the darkness. Every day 2000 people commit suicide in the world. To commit suicide, you need to be very much in love with yourself. When you firmly believe that you are superior to everyone, smarter than everyone, more beautiful than everyone, better than everyone, you can no longer tolerate those left behind. You need to be so in love, you need to worship your own supreme existence so much that everything should devastate you. While the world should be revolving around you, you need to see its failure to do so as a great injustice done to you. The reason I dream of suicide from time to time stems from seeing you all as bugs. But if I was able to give up and continue living until today, the reason for this must be my realization that I am a bug no different from anyone else. Bugs bumping each other’s shoulders, bugs hugging each other, bugs selling each other out, bugs praising each other, bugs crushing each other, bugs loving each other.

What a beautiful woman Simge Sağın is, man. Her voice, her interpretation, her songs, her lyrics, her music, her hair, her eyes, her nose, her lips, her clothing, her outfits, her stance, her elegance, her body, her courage, her sweetness, her sex appeal. Ms. Sağın, may I worship you?

I am on the roads of North Dakota in the middle of the darkness. Interstate Highway 94 West. 3 o’clock at night. Between Fargo and Billings is a suitable road to write. There is no one around here. No one lives here. Those who slaughter each other for a piece of land haven’t discovered these places. Yeah right? They have discovered it, of course. They discovered it and are keeping it empty. They’re not going to give it to someone who needs it, obviously. It’s preferable for it to go to waste. If everyone’s belly is full, everyone’s conscience will start to ache later. What is the need for such things? One shouldn’t stir up old notebooks. Old notebooks are teeming with debt. Happiness is in ignorance. I see tremendous benefits in constantly reminding myself that I don’t know shit. I am not without fear that I might exaggerate this awareness too much one day. But we will think about that on that day. Saying this and that, we have left 37 years behind. Time passes. Time passes fast. One needs to listen to a lot of Simge Sağın.

I kept your letter, because your hands touched it You couldn’t keep your promise, supposedly you loved for a lifetime I love you, you love another How much destiny loves writing separation

Imagine receiving a letter from Kira Pregiato. Oh boobs, boobs. A sweet face and boobs as big as my head. That’s the whole point. Here is the secret to happiness for you: An innocent face and titties the size of watermelons.