Row Your Own Boat, Please.
It’s hard to be a bird in
the winter – legs dipped into cold,
dirty Thames’ water. No roof to hide under.
It’s hard to stand against
the current to prove your fallacies,
your name, under your oppressing fog.
It’s hard to be the one
for you – head dipped in the undulating
muddy river of the ghosts of your past.
With no hard shoulder
to rest, it’s tough – under your needy eyes’,
to row this burden boat of yours, my love.
Ozge Gozturk is a London-based author, poet, scriptwriter, and journalist. She holds an MA degree in Creative Writing from Roehampton University. She is the founder of the London Independent Story Prize. Her various stories have been published in magazines in the US, the Netherlands, Malawi, the UK, and Turkey, including KaosGL (Turkey), Feminine Collective Raw (USA), Authors Club Anthology (UK), 81 Words Anthology (Victoria Press, UK, 2021), Bending Genres (USA). She was shortlisted for WriteNow by Penguin Books and long-listed for The London Library Emerging Writers Programme. Twitter: @ozgegztrk