Anna M. Stratulat

I cannot tell if it was the wind or time itself that paused in reverent stillness that day—

perhaps it was both, entwined in delicate silence.

It was July in Istanbul — a city that refuses to be forgotten, yet will not suffer a soul’s concealment from itself. I sat beside the Bosphorus, bearing within me the sincerest of truths: unspoken longings, wounds concealed in quiet, questions unanswered and echoing softly. I smiled not for the portrait’s sake, but because, in that moment, I felt… at last, stillness—a ceasing of flight.

For the first time in many years, I wished not to be elsewhere, nor another, nor in another hour of life. I possessed myself wholly—and that was, indeed, enough.

The water kissed the shore with a hush that only the heart perceives,

and the sky, vast and open, stretched above like a solemn promise.

There I stood — in my yellow gown, bare shoulders catching the breeze, and a heart swollen with unspoken grace — poised between sky and sea, between what has been and what is yet to come,

between all I had lost and all I might be worthy to find.

It was but a moment—fleeting as a sigh—yet in that moment I knew:

There is a place for me in this world, as I am,

and it is exquisite beyond words.

19 July, Istanbul