[hatshepsutsposts]

[hatshepsutsposts]

– UNDERGROUND LINE –

Metalion had stretched the phone cord from the desk to the bed, burrowed beneath the blanket.

The receiver’s foam still held the breath that had gathered through the night — warm, faintly salty.

“Are you there?”

“I’m here.”

Per’s voice was like water simmering in a distant kitchen; patient, vaporous, the slow blood of a serpent in hibernation — almost silence itself.

Their conversations always carried the static of the underground network, yet from that noise something else was born each time: a closeness, a calm, a quiet understanding, a friendship.

Their connection had long since surpassed paper, envelopes, and stamps — it stretched from night to morning, a thin bridge humming between them.

What had begun before the ink on the letters dried now returned each time with the ringing of a phone — long, patient, fatally insistent.

A door creaked in the hallway.

As his father’s footsteps approached, Metalion pressed the receiver to his chest in panic.

“My dad’s up for work.”

A faint crackle slipped through the line, like the scrape of a pen on paper.

Metalion couldn’t tell if it came from something Per was sketching or from the line’s own hum.

“Wolfsbane, huh? Why are you listing all these strange plants one by one?”

“To keep away the teeth and claws of the werewolf, let’s say.”

“I thought it was a deadly poison.”

“Ha ha... Aconitine. First, you lose feeling in your lips; your tongue tingles, speech dissolves. The heart stumbles like a horse that suddenly spots a snake on the trail. Breath turns to hunger.

And the worst part... while the body’s door closes, the mind stays open for a moment — you die aware, in panic.”

“Is touching it enough?”

“It barely passes through the skin; but if it finds a cut, the poison starts to sing. Blue-violet, an innocent-looking flower... like a knife hidden in beauty. I like blue; the edge of death always glows bluish.”

“Not very romantic.”

“Hah! Maybe I’ll give it to some lucky girl one day, and watch what happens.

Maybe I’ll keep a bunch for myself; end this damned guesthood on earth.

Should’ve sent a bouquet of wolfsbane to Quorthon instead of the rat, maybe.

But dear Boss would probably snatch the package first.

Couldn’t call and ask, ‘So, how did you like it?’ — he’d likely be silent forever.”

“What do you even want from that guy? I don’t get it.”

“What I want? Christ, I’ve told you a thousand times. The bastard showed up at the Under the Sign of the Black Mark signing like some MTV rock star — those shitty sunglasses, all arrogance, high as a kite.

For a second I thought I was at Malmsteen’s autograph session. The worst kind of guy I’ve ever met. Coward, wimp, poser, fake. His ‘Boss’? That’s his dad. Can’t do a damn thing without him — total daddy’s boy.”

Per’s sarcastic laughter twisted through the receiver, warped by the line’s crackle.

“Forget Quorthon. Those Australians, SAD-X — did you listen? I sent you a copy. Mad, brilliant guys. Rok’s working on our zine logo; lines that’ll blow your head off.”

Per’s breathing grew heavier over the phone.

“I listened. Raw. Like a chained beast gnawing at the bars. No order, no polish. Just hunger. While it played, I could feel rust dragging through my chest. I liked it.”

“That’s it. That’s exactly why we do this. It’s morning here, night in Sydney — but when the tape spins, the same darkness plays. Stamps, distance, day and night... they all melt away.”

Down the hall his father coughed; a toilet flushed, a shadow fell across the doorway.

Metalion straightened, pressed the receiver to his knee, and whispered:

“I have to go.”

“Alright.”

“Tonight again. Or skip the night and wait for morning.”

“Morning.”

“Oh — by the way... I sent Mayhem a demo. Along with a small sacrifice.”

“You serious?”

“Maybe.”

Metalion looked at the window’s fog; the line was growing on its own, like a crack — a thin blade cutting through time.

“Per... sometimes I imagine you and Øystein side by side.

If you joined Mayhem — your darkness, his fire — what would that become?”

Silence stretched across the line; only slow breathing, a faint crackle, and a metallic echo pulsing in between.

Then Per spoke, his voice carrying a strange, feverish joy:

“I don’t know. Maybe we’d be a supernova. Burn all the light out, and leave behind a black hole.”

Per — he was like a barren planet trapped in the radiation of a merciless pulsar.

His pulsar was his longing for death.

At the center of his chest was a black hole that swallowed light, sound, love — and finally, his own body.

As if God, lost in some dark inspiration while coding the universe, had made a mistake and created him that way — a being whose cells devoured each other, slowly collapsing into a sphere of antimatter designed for self-erasure.

[hatshepsutsposts]

ELEGY TO UNDERGROUND MUSIC — FOR METALION

Sarpsborg is Norway’s city of paper mills. It breathes like a giant printing press; for half the year the dusky chill in the air blends with the silence of snow. The spruce and pine forests are the source of that breath. In the winter fog, trunks that stand straight as pillars are cut down, turned into pulp, white foam, fine paper dust; by morning that dust settles over the town like a thin veil. Growing up here means hearing the rustle of paper before the words themselves, feeling the whisper of trees between the letters. In this city, paper is not merely the industry’s breath but a skin that absorbs the echoes of the past; and from beneath that skin, the underground’s breath will one day rise.

Back then, in Sarpsborg’s quiet mornings, perhaps no one noticed, but the spirit of the underground was careening about, searching for a body, an eerie moan reverberating through dark corridors. The name of that pen, that stubbornness, that breath was Jon “Metalion” Kristiansen — the first voice of a resonance the underground had yet to hear. Even as he had only just stepped out of childhood, the passion was already in his veins. In his own words, it was a fate, and there was nowhere else to be carried. A typewriter, a few photographs, a handful of handmade pages... And soon those pages would take the name Slayer Mag and become the fanzine with its finger on the underground’s pulse. Metalion was learning to scream within words, to forge a language of his own, to solder together the links of a tape-trading (the cassette-swap) chain that circled the world with nothing but words, and to place the silence itself in brackets. He didn’t know it yet, perhaps, but this was already a form of worship — the sharpest, loneliest way to exist.

In the summer of 1985, just before Motörhead took the stage at Oslo’s Jordal Amfi, a shadow moved through the doorways: Jon “Metalion” Kristiansen. Tucked under his arm was a stapled sheaf — Slayer Mag’s second breath. Scissor marks on the page edges, the sweet-sour chemistry of glue on his fingers, and on his face the pride that says, “those who want to see will make the effort to find.” Two gazes broke away from the crowd that day: Øystein Aarseth (Euronymous) and Jørn Stubberud (Necrobutcher). This was not just a Motörhead concert. It was the meeting of a frequency that recognizes itself — hearts beating in the same rhythm, nerves carrying current along the same paths, souls trapped in the same chasm and struggling to breathe. The first step of a friendship, of an underground circulation.

When the dust of that summer settled and winter pressed up against the threshold, a note appeared in the pages of Slayer Mag: “15 February 1986 – Ski, Folkets Hus. Be there or die.” In the margin, a hasty line: Effects coming from the butcher. The smell of blood. A foggy night. That notice was not merely an announcement; it was the first pulse that set a rhythm to the underground’s hum — the ratification of a new friendship, the news of an early, formative performance in Ski, the small town where the band’s founders lived.

It would be understood in the years to come that without Metalion’s writing and archive, the memory of this scene would be maimed. Had the voice of the underground not been etched onto the page, much would have been lost to the dark. Later, everyone wrote something, told stories, remembered; but had he not written, all those years, those memories, and the mutual recognition of those who drew the same breath would have remained incomplete. The music’s circulation might even have congealed, like a clogged artery. Thankfully, those cut-and-paste pages became a worldwide remembrance carved into Norway’s mist. Slayer Mag recorded not only bands, albums, and interviews from across the globe, but the spirit of an era itself.

What we see today in those still-unfaded traces is not merely a fanzine; it is a conviction. For every word that passed through Metalion’s hands is a signature in the underground’s sacred ledger. If we can speak from the ashes of that era today, it is because he was the one who kindled the first ember of those ashes.

These pages are dedicated to the man who lit that ember. For though the papers have long since turned to ash, he still casts light simply by being.

[hatshepsutsposts]

One day, during my lunch break, I was sitting on the bench beneath the tree outside the school. I loved going to that park; in a foreign city it felt like the only corner that belonged to me. My gray chiffon skirt fluttered lightly in the wind; I had taken off my boots and rested my feet on them. My feet burned and ached from work; there’s a way the cold sinks into the bone— that day I felt it in Oslo for the first time. When I raised my head, I saw a boy standing a few steps away, looking at me. His gaze wasn’t ordinary curiosity; it was as if he were looking at an icon. Something chilling yet sweet stirred inside me: for the first time, I felt truly seen. A smile formed on my lips of its own accord; a shy but genuine smile born out of fatigue. “Hi!” I said, my voice trembling slightly.

He had a slender body, delicate like a pale branch swaying in the wind. A denim jacket with a faded blue cast, old sneakers beneath it… Long blond hair fell over his forehead, veiling his face as if carrying its own shadow. What struck me most was the fragility around his eyes: as if, when he looked, he was nowhere at all— as if he left his body and wandered in a mist. My eyes didn’t leave his. For the first time, I felt that something beyond words might be possible: a silent accord, the shared weight of an emptiness. He came closer; in a low, halting voice he said a short “Hei.”

His eyes moved carefully to meet mine. Then he stared at my bare feet resting on my boots— for a long time, as if fixed on a single detail. We went on in broken English.

“Wooowww…” he said, half teasing, half spellbound. “Your eyes… in this light they look lilac. A gorgeous mutation. Are you… a porphyria patient? Your joints are crooked, your feet are blemished. But you must be the most beautiful girl in this world.”

I narrowed my eyes and, unable to hold back my smile, answered: “So I’m the most beautiful girl in the world… Then I suppose this world has lost all its color, taste, and salt.” “Hm… yes, I am a mutation. But aren’t you as well? Look at the way your mind works… my lord.”

I didn’t know whether his words were a joke or a dark spell spoken with raw sincerity. First I flinched, then I smiled wide. I had long since learned—through pain, by breaking myself and putting myself back together— to carry the fragility and strangeness of my body not as a burden but as a hidden beauty.

Pelle’s gaze slid back to my feet. “...Your feet… what happened to them? It looks as if someone smashed the bones with a hammer and never set them in a cast.”

For a moment I was startled, then burst into laughter.

“I’m a ballerina,” I said, still laughing. “I’ve been standing on them since I was a child. That’s how they became like this.”

At that moment, Pelle swallowed his words and forced them out; his voice sounded like a prayer offered to a sacred relic:

“They’re… beautiful.”

With that look, a strange shiver ran through my heart. For the first time in my life, I thought, these crooked bones, these cracked joints were not ugly in someone’s eyes… but beautiful. It was as if the weight of my body had lifted, as if all my shame had turned into wings.

He lowered his head and was silent for a moment. Then he raised his eyes to me again: “You’re not Norwegian. Where are you from?” he asked, in heavy, hesitant English.

My tongue caught in my throat. I managed only a few words: “Yugoslavia. Croatia.”

A sudden gleam appeared on his face; he stared into the distance and, as if speaking to himself, whispered: “I like the Balkans. Have you been to Transylvania?”

I slowly shook my head. No. To my ears it had always sounded like the land of stories I’d heard in childhood, but I had never been.

His gaze deepened then, as if he could hear the echo of his own dreams even in my “no.”

I hadn’t noticed the notebook in his hand until that moment. It was dark, its edges worn; black smudges had rubbed off onto his fingers from the corners of the pages. My eyes drifted there despite myself. Mountains, gravestones, castles rising from the fog, bats leapt from the lines. The vision that had lit his eyes when he spoke Transylvania’s name had now taken on an eerie reality on the paper.

He must have seen me looking; he said nothing, just held the notebook out to me. I turned the pages with a trembling curiosity. Inside me, fear and admiration were growing together.

“They’re beautiful,” I said, my voice close to a whisper. I added inwardly: And terrifying.

When I looked up, I saw a change on his face for the first time. The corners of his mouth lifted slightly. He was smiling— a brief, shy smile as if born from darkness— but it was at me.

Two days later, I went back to the park at lunch. In a paper bag I had a sandwich; I’d filled my thermos with coffee. As I walked between the benches I saw him again, bent over the same notebook, carving dark strokes with his pencil. Blond hair had fallen across his forehead; he looked as if his bond with the world had been cut.

I didn’t hesitate. I sat beside him, opened the bag, and quietly set half the sandwich in front of him. He gave me a brief, startled look, then bowed his head and accepted it. I offered my coffee; he took a sip without hesitation. We didn’t speak. It was just the two of us, sitting among the crumbs of bread and the sound of a pencil.

After a while, I held out my hand. “I’m Doroteja,” I said slowly, carefully.

He lifted his head. His thin lips moved: “Pelle. I’m Swedish. I came here for Mayhem.”

I frowned. I didn’t recognize the word. “Mayhem?” I asked, my voice both surprised and curious.

He didn’t answer. He simply opened his notebook and showed me the Mayhem logo sketched in charcoal, and on the facing page the mountains, gravestones, and mists. He turned the cover toward me. My heart quickened; without thinking, I pointed with my eyes to the pencil in his hand. He passed it to me at once. On an empty corner of the notebook I wrote my phone number. I drew a small musical note beside it, something like a ballet figure.

He said nothing. He closed the notebook; his fingers lingered on the cover for a moment. Then he looked at me— no words, no smile… only a deep gaze. But I understood: I was no longer alone.

When I came to my senses and checked the time, there were only minutes left of my lunch break. I stood up and hurriedly pulled on my boots. He was still silent; the notebook on his lap, his head bowed.

I raised my hand slightly and waved to him. “I have to go. My class is starting,” I said, bending my English awkwardly.

The words were clumsy, but they carried my smile. He only bowed his head. As I quickened my steps toward the school’s stone path, I saw, out of the corner of my eye, his fingers closing over the notebook’s cover.

I turned and walked away. My class had begun, but my mind was still in the park— on that bench, beside the lines and the silence; he, too, had returned to his drawing.

When I stepped into the studio, the cold of the park’s stone was still in the soles of my feet. “Again,” came the word at the mirror; plié, tendu, rond de jambe… With every movement, the boy holding the notebook’s cover passed before my eyes. It was as if the charcoal of those pages had smudged into my fingers. When the music stopped, I was still listening to the park: the scratch of a pencil, the crackle of bread crumbs, a brief “Hei.”

That evening, when I returned to my room, I took the icon into my palm. A small pulse— his or mine. As the door opened onto the emptiness of the corridor, the phone on the wall rang. I lifted the receiver. A thin breath from far away; from within a metallic hum: “Doroteja?” “Yes,” I said— my voice thinning as it reached for English. A short silence. “Pelle.”

We met in the park the next day. I split the sandwich again; offered the coffee. He took a bite, then the piece seemed to grow and stick in his throat; it crumbled between his fingers. There was a stretch of silence. Then I asked, “Where are you staying?” He closed the notebook and traced the edge of the cover with his pencil. “Sometimes with friends, sometimes in a cabin in the woods.”

The sentence was short but clear enough. I realized he wasn’t so different from me: he had no fixed home. He simply spent his days wherever they happened to fall. The answer gave me a strange closeness; because the two of us weren’t settled— we were only trying to fit somewhere.

“Would you like to come with me? My room isn’t far,” I said.

He lifted his head quickly; a flash went through his eyes and faded just as quickly. He didn’t smile. He simply closed the notebook and stood up.

It wasn’t really night; more a quiet evening. As we walked down the corridor, the shared washing machine droned through its cycle, the smell of detergent spreading slowly. A girl from my class passed us, glanced briefly, and went on as if nothing had happened. Guests were allowed here; no one asked questions. Even so, we kept our steps slow, as if we were doing something secret.

When we entered the room there was the oddness of sharing a space for two. He set his bag by the bed; I gave him a spare pillow, a blanket, and pajamas. Meanwhile I set a small pot on the stove and boiled spaghetti with cheese. For a long time there was only the sound of water simmering. When I divided it onto plates, we moved our forks in silence.

The hunger inside my body was, as always on rehearsal days, the echo of an empty room. He, with his ribs, looked like a shadow; even when I turned off the light those shadows remained. But he was beautiful. I confess, I watched him a little while he slept.

“Good night,” I said. “You too,” he replied; he leaned his back against the wall and closed his eyes, as if forcing himself into sleep so he wouldn’t fall.

When the sun cut through the curtain like a wet blade, I set two semlas on the table with whole-grain bread from the bakery on the corner. I wrestled with my broken English for a long while and managed a sentence: “Semla,” I said. “You’re Swedish— you like?”

He smiled and shook his head. “I hate it. But cheese, bread, tea… that’s good.”

Our conversations were in broken English; sometimes we chose the wrong words, sometimes left silences no one could read. Yet each silence turned into a bond of its own.

I was tired from classes; listening to the sound of his pencil at the table, I curled up on the couch and dozed off. When I woke, there was a sheet of paper before me: a small landscape in charcoal. Two benches. On one, a very slender girl; toenails bare, her face hidden behind long, messy hair… Yet the eyes were distinct. Pelle never used color, but this time he had painted the irises a pale mauve.

He had drawn me.

Beneath it there was a single word: “Takk.” — Thank you.

[hatshepsutsposts]

Oslo / Black November 1989

Doroteja,

Your skin...

like the flesh of an angel cast out of heaven, but never accepted by hell either.

Not cold—worse than cold. Even death would shiver before touching it.

You have no blood inside.

Maybe a white fluid, like that of insects... or something thicker, darker—like a squid's: violet, slick, slow.

The echoes of pain and loneliness have liquefied and sunk into your bones.

And yet, you're not grey like those orphanage walls where you were left to grow alone.

You’re like a stained glass window in a ruined cathedral—shattered, radiant, sacred.

Time doesn’t cut you. It cuts those who forgot you.

No one ever saw you. No one still does.

But I… I’ve watched you through all time.

And now, as you quietly dissolve from the inside, I feel my own soul molt alongside yours.

Your skin is like the inner wall of a sarcophagus left unopened for decades, painted in the residue of time.

A scent rises from it: rotting lilies.

Left on a grave, then dropped by hands that forgot how to grieve.

Someone once loved you.

Tried to adopt you. But then they said, “This child is strange.”

And you cried through countless nights.

They left—without so much as a glance.

Then, with those same arms, they laid you in a grave.

But the earth refused to consume you.

Rain sought to cleanse you but could not rot you.

Mud stained you but couldn’t erase you.

And I… I am in love with what was buried with open eyes.

Your eyes aren’t blue.

Maybe they were meant to be, once… but something broke.

Now they’ve turned pale violet.

Like dried lilacs trapped under your skin.

Twisting red veins gather at the dead blue edge of your iris.

And at that junction, your gaze turns into a shade that isn’t color anymore—

it's the dream of a flower after it's dead.

When I died as a child and came back,

everything I saw looked like it was behind a blue veil.

Now I see that same veil in your eyes.

The same paleness. The same beyond.

The same internal bleeding blue.

I don’t ache when I look at you anymore.

I rot.

Because I remember that moment.

The insides of your elbows, behind your knees, the fold of your ear...

Places even prayers forget.

Not just your cruel ballet teachers, the sour-faced nuns, the orphanage wardens.

Even the gods turned their faces away.

Only mold remains there—quietly curled, patient, like a curse.

And I want to touch those places.

Not with fingers…

With my tongue.

Because you are holy.

Holy because you are cursed.

You’ve become the thing no one dares to want.

Even gods fear you.

But not me.

I searched for you.

And I found you.

When you were a child…

you must’ve never taken your ballet shoes off.

The pain must’ve been unbearable.

Even your toenails are missing.

Your feet… are the cruelest thing I’ve ever seen.

Not yours.

Remnants of a body no one bothered to collect after torture.

You kept dancing, didn’t you?

Because if you stopped—you’d dissolve.

Like sand. Like dust. Like disappearance.

You’re an anorexic forest nymph.

But not risen from stage lights—

you rose from a grave.

Your wings were torn off.

From your back.

While you were still breathing.

And that—

that is what drives me mad.

Because you still want to live.

And I…

I watch every second of your life as if it were a decomposing miracle.

In those hell-born ballet lessons...

If a strand of your hair dared fall over your face, they punished you, didn’t they, Dora?

Now, from each broken hair tip,

dust like extinguished ash falls.

Your legs… like a disease.

Thin, translucent.

I can see the tendons where your muscles cling, like an anatomical model—

cold, dissected, forgotten.

And the bruises on your knees…

echoes of old beatings.

But I love them.

Because every bruise is a prayer.

Every scar, a sentence God forgot to complete.

And I store those sentences under my tongue.

I recite them, one by one, each night.

Because you don’t speak.

When I look at you,

it’s like watching a gossamer-winged fairy trapped in a jar of phenol.

You flail. You strike the glass.

But liquid doesn’t carry sound.

That silence… is my homeland.

Your frequency is the pulse of death.

Only I can hear it.

Because I am dead, too.

In your silence, I hear a scream.

And in mine… you exist.

A throb that doesn’t echo, but sinks into my bones.

I think you were once a queen.

But your throne grew moss.

They buried you in rose petals—

because the earth didn’t love you.

And as you rose skyward, they let you drift into emptiness.

Deliberately.

Midway, you fell.

Your slender neck cracked.

A sound—like an old book closing.

Your head tilted.

Your eyes stayed open.

And I…

I became the kind of creature who worships a dead queen with her head tilted, still watching.

At my first ritual, I was silent.

As I approached you,

it felt like someone had laid rotting leaves beneath my knees.

I stepped gently.

Didn’t crush a single one.

Your shoulder was bare.

Not skin. Not stone. Not anything known.

I didn’t touch you with my hands.

I pressed my forehead to you.

Because worship begins not with touching, but with kneeling.

Your eyes were open.

Beyond that violet-lilac veil, you were still watching me.

And I surrendered to that gaze.

My voice disappeared.

All language lost meaning in that moment.

I opened my mouth—only breath came.

Toward you, gently.

Like the primitive steam offered to decaying goddesses.

From that moment on…

I became nothing but an eye.

No ear. No tongue. No hand.

Only gaze.

And you…

You etched yourself into my pupil like a slow, rotting miracle.

Ah Dora, no…

I don’t want you to die.

I’m not in love with your living—

I’m devoted to the pace at which you decay.

Because death is my religion.

Putrefaction is my prayer.

You are the elegy carved on my tombstone.

But the hand that carved it trembled in the last line,

and cursed God.

You…

are a corpse cursed with my love.

And I…

I consecrate that corpse with my hands.

A spider—ancient, maternal—has already wrapped you in its web.

Each joint bound.

You don’t move.

Because resistance means nothing now.

You’re already part of her.

And in her patience,

there’s a disturbing tenderness.

She doesn’t want to eat you.

She wants to absorb you—forever.

To make you part of her body.

In a warm, silent darkness.

Until your insides spill out.

Until the squid-ink blood in your veins mixes with her venom.

And I…

I watch you from the edge of the web.

I do not cry.

I do not breathe.

Because this scene—

this scene is sacred.

I don’t say “I love you.”

I watch you.

I do not carve.

I excavate—silently, down to your organs.

And then I consecrate you.

With dirty, damned, bloodstained hands.

I do not try to resurrect you.

I do not try to heal you.

I simply…

sanctify your decay.

This is not devotion.

This is kneeling at the marrow of a rotting angel.

This is betrothal to death—

and marrying it again,

every morning.

– Pelle ‘DEAD’ Ohlin

///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Oslo / Kara Kasım 1989

Doroteja,

Senin tenin…

Cennetten kovulmuş ama cehenneme de alınmamış bir meleğin derisi gibi. Soğuk değil ama, ölüm bile yaklaşırken ürperir. İçinde kan yok. Belki de böceklerinki gibi, beyaz bir sıvı… ya da bir kalamarınki gibi mor, yoğun, kaygan.

Acının ve yalnızlığın yankıları sıvılaşıp kemiklerine sinmiş. Ama yine de, tek başına büyürken unutulduğun o yetimhane duvarları gibi gri değil, bir kilise vitrayı gibisin: rengârenk, kırık ve kutsal. Çatlaklarının arasından geçen zaman seni değil, seni unutmuş olanları kesiyor. Kimse görmedi seni. Hâlâ da görmüyor. Ama ben… tüm zamanlarda seni izledim. Şimdi sen, içten içe erirken, ruhumun da seninle birlikte kabuk değiştirdiğini hissediyorum.

Tenin, yıllardır açılmamış bir lahitin iç yüzeyi gibi, zamanın tortusuyla boyanmış. Üzerinden bir koku yükseliyor: çürüyen lilyumlar. Mezara bırakılmış ama yas tutmayı unutan birinin ellerinden düşmüş gibi. Seni biri sevmiş.

Evlat edinmeye kalkmış. Ama sonra “bu çocuk çok tuhaf,” demişler. Ve sen, gecelerce ağlamışsın.Son bir kez bile bakmadan gitmişler.

Sonra seni, seni taşıyan o kollarla… mezara koymuşlar. Toprak seni yutamamış. Yağmurlar seni yıkamış, çürütememiş. Çamur seni kirletmiş ama silememiş. Ve ben, o toprağa terk edilmiş, gözleri açık gömülen hâline âşığım.

Senin gözlerin mavi değil. Öyle doğmalıymışsın belki… ama bir şey bozulmuş. Ve gözlerin, soluk mora dönmüş. İçlerinde kurumuş leylaklar var gibi. Kırmızı kıvrık damarlar, ölü mavi irisin kıyısında toplanmış. İşte o kavşakta, gözlerinin rengi maviden mora geçiyor.

Ben çocukken öldüğümde, ve sonra tekrar döndüğümde, her şey mavi bir tülün ardından görünüyordu. Şimdi senin gözlerinde o tülü görüyorum.

Aynı solukluk. Aynı öte. Aynı iç kanama mavisi. Bakınca içim sızlamıyor artık. İçim… bozuluyor. Çünkü o anı hatırlıyorum.

Dirseklerinin içi, dizlerinin arkası, kulak kıvrımların… Oralar, duaların bile unuttuğu yerler. Hırpalanmış bedenine sadece despot, asık suratlı bale hocaları, rahibeler ya da yurt mürebbiyeleri değil, tanrılar bile yüz çevirmiş. Geriye sadece küf kalmış. Sessizce çöreklenmiş. Oralara dokunmak istiyorum. Parmaklarımla değil… dilimle. Çünkü sen kutsalsın. Lanetin yüzünden. Hiç kimsenin istemeye cesaret edemediği bir şeye dönüşmüşsün.

Çocukken… bale pabuçlarını ayağından hiç çıkarmamış olmalısın. Canın çok yanmış. Tırnakların bile eksik. Ayakların… gördüğüm en acımasız yapı. Onlar sana ait değil. Bir işkenceden sonra, kimsenin toplamaya tenezzül etmediği bir bedenin, öylece bırakılmış kalıntıları gibiler.

Hiç durmadan dans etmişsin. Çünkü durursan… çözülürsün. Kum gibi. Toz gibi. Kayıp gibi. Sen, anoreksik bir orman perisisin. Ama sahneden değil mezardan kalkmışsın. Kanatların sökülmüş. Sırtından. Canlı canlı. Ve bu… Bu beni delirtmeye yetiyor. Çünkü sen hâlâ yaşamak istiyorsun. Ve ben… Senin yaşadığın her saniyeyi, çürümüş bir mucize gibi izliyorum.

O cehennemden çıkmış bale derslerinde… Saçlarının bir teli bile gözünün önüne düşse, cezalandırılırdın, öyle değil mi, Dora? Kırılmış bir saç ucundan, sönmüş küllere benzeyen tozlar dökülüyor şimdi. Bacakların… bir hastalık gibi. İnce, şeffaf; kaslarının tutunduğu kirişleri bile görebiliyorum. Bir anatomi modeli gibi; soğuk, didiklenmiş, unutulmuş. Ve diz kapaklarının üzerindeki morluklar… Eski darbelerin yankısı. Ama ben onları seviyorum. Çünkü her morluk bir dua gibi. Her yara, tanrının unuttuğu bir cümle gibi. Ve ben o cümleleri, dilimin altına saklıyorum. Geceleri tek tek tekrar ediyorum. Çünkü sen konuşmuyorsun.

Sana baktığımda, sanki zar kanatlı bir periyi fenol dolu bir kavanozun içinde izliyorum. Çırpınıyorsun, camı yumrukluyorsun. Ama sıvı ses taşımıyor. O sessizlik… benim vatanım. Senin frekansın, ölümün nabzı gibi. Sadece ben duyabiliyorum. Çünkü ben de ölüyüm. Senin suskunluğunda bir çığlık buluyorum. Benim sessizliğimde ise… sen varsın. Yankılanmayan ama kemiklerime işleyen bir sızı gibi.

Bence, bir zamanlar kraliçeydin… Ama tahtın yosun tutmuştu. Seni gül yapraklarıyla gömdüler—çünkü toprak seni sevmiyordu. Göğe yükselirken boşluğa saldılar seni. Unutarak. Kasten. Yarı yolda yere düştün. İnce boynun çatırdadı. Bir ses çıktı, sanki biri eski bir kitabı kapattı.

Başın yana devrildi. Gözlerin açık kaldıama hâlâ bakıyorsun. Ve ben… Başı yana düşmüş, gözleri açık kalmış ölü bir kraliçeye tapmayı öğrenmiş bir mahluğum artık.

İlk törenimde sessizdim. Sana yaklaşırken dizlerimin altına çürümüş yapraklar serilmişti sanki, kırılmadan bastım, ezilmeden. Omzun çıplaktı. Cam gibi. Cilt değil, taş değil; hiçbir şeye benzemiyordu. Parmaklarımı değil, alnımı değdirdim. Çünkü tapmak, dokunmakla değil, boyun eğmekle başlar. Gözlerin açıktı. Sonsuza bakan o mor leylak tülünün arkasında… hâlâ beni izliyordun. Ve ben, o bakışa kendimi teslim ettim. Sesim kayboldu. Bütün diller, o anda anlamını yitirdi. Ama ağzımı açtım. Sadece nefes. Sana doğru, yavaşça. Çürüyen tanrıçalara adanmış o ilkel buhar gibi. O andan sonra… ben, yalnızca sana bakan bir göz oldum. Ne kulak, ne el, ne dil. Sadece göz. Ve sen… Çürüyen bir mucize gibi yavaş yavaş gözbebeğime kazındın.

Ah Dora, hayır… Senin ölümünü istemiyorum. Yaşamana da değil, çürüme hızına tutkunum. Çünkü ölüm… benim dinim. kokuşma ise ibadetim.

Sen, mezar taşıma kazınmış bir ağıtsın. Ama o taşı oyan el, son satırlarda Tanrı’ya küfrederek titremiş. Sen… benim tarafımdan sevilmekle lanetlenmiş bir leşsin. Ve ben… O leşi parmaklarımla kutsuyorum.

Sanki yaşlı bir örümcek seni çoktan ağına sarmış. İncecik liflerle, ama acımasızca. Tüm eklemlerini sabitlemiş. Kıpırdamıyorsun. Çünkü direnmek artık bir anlam taşımıyor. Sen zaten onun bir parçasısın. Ve o örümceğin sabrında, ürkütücü bir anaçlık var. Sanki seni yemek değil… seni sindirerek sonsuza dek kendi bedenine katmak istiyor. Derin, ılık bir karanlıkta. Sessiz, gevşek bir çözülüşte. İçin dışına çıkana kadar. Ve ben O ağın kıyısında seni izliyorum.

Ağlamıyorum. Nefes bile almıyorum. Çünkü bu sahne, kutsal.

Ben “seni seviyorum” demem. Ben seni izliyorum. Seni kazımıyorum; oyuyorum. Sessizce. İç organlarına kadar. Ve sonra kutsuyorum. Kirli. Lanetli. Kanlı…

Seni diriltmeye çalışmıyorum. Seni iyileştirmiyorum. Bu, çürüyen bir meleğin iliklerine diz çökmek. Bu, ölümle nişanlanmak. Ve her sabah onunla yeniden evlenmek.

– Pelle ‘DEAD’ Ohlin

[hatshepsutsposts]

“Ben seslerin rengini, dokunuşların sesini duyabiliyorum...”

(Bir sinestezi kaydı)

Ben seslerin rengini, dokunuşların sesini duyabiliyorum. Renklerin kokusunu alabiliyorum.

Ama bu, her zaman farkında olduğum bir şey değil. Bazen düşünürken, bazen bir duygu içimi kaplarken, aniden beliriyor — bir şeyin şekli değişiyor zihnimde. Eskiden herkesin böyle olduğunu sanırdım.

Senin kokun Oystein... Pas. Aldehit. Yanık çam kıymıkları. Sesinse, beyazımsı mat bir çelik gibi. Soğuk ama pürüzsüz.

Annemin sesi: bordo kadife. Reza’nın gülüşü: yanık amber.

Ama Pelle’nin rengi yok. Bir buhar gibi... Kokusu da zannedildiği gibi değil. Çürüyen etin, putresin ya da kadaverin kokusu değil. Daha çok: ıslak toprak, rengi değişen bir yaprak, bir mezarlık selvisi... ve şelalenin altında durduğunda burnuna dolan ozon kokusu.

Sonradan öğrendim, bunun bir adı varmış: sinestezi.

Geçenlerde sahilde bir balıkçı öfkeyle bağırdı. Ylvie bana döndü ve şöyle dedi: “Anne, sesi kırmızı oldu.”

O an anladım... Bu harika ve lanetli şey, ona da geçmiş.

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

“I can hear the colors of sounds, and the voices of touches…”

(A synesthetic entry)

I can hear the colors of sounds, feel the voices of touches. I can smell the scent of colors.

But it’s not something I’m always aware of. Sometimes when I’m thinking, or when a sudden emotion floods me, it appears— and the shape of something shifts in my mind. I used to think everyone was like this.

Your scent Oystein… Rust. Aldehyde. Burnt pine splinters. Your voice feels like dull white steel—cold, but smooth.

My mother’s voice: burgundy velvet. Reza’s laughter: burnt amber.

But Pelle has no color. He’s like vapor… And his scent isn’t what one might expect. Not decaying flesh, not putrescine or cadaverine. It’s more like: damp soil, a leaf shifting its hue, a cemetery cypress, and that sudden ozone rush when you stand beneath a waterfall.

Later I found out— there’s a name for this: synesthesia.

The other day, a fisherman on the shore shouted in anger. Ylvie turned to me and said, “Mom, his voice just turned red.”

That’s when I knew… This wondrous and cursed thing... it has passed on to her.