>oiktozian: Bilge Şen
Title of The Work: Faith…
Original Title: Sonbaharın Sessiz Duası
It was a warm autumn evening. The sky stretched out before my eyes like a painting where red and orange intertwined. The weather was neither too hot nor too cold; it was as if my insides had calmed down along with the season. I didn’t know that moment was a turning point in my life. How could I have known that autumn would truly be my “last spring”?
I don’t know if you remember. But that moment is still clear in my mind: The first moment my eyes met yours. The world had suddenly gone silent. Yet there was so much noise around—cars, people, the hum of the crowd… But I had closed my ears to everything and turned only to you. Without taking my eyes off you, I had whispered an “amen” to a prayer that would perhaps never come true. Silently, unnoticed.
I continued to live without knowing how that prayer would shape my life, or even grasping its importance. I had only one wish back then: To return from this world as a human being, just as I was sent from this world as a human being, having managed to remain human. But the world was taking a piece of me every passing day. My hopes, my dreams, my innocence… Silently, little by little.
What was it that diminished me? My choices, or the things I couldn’t choose?
Time was flowing relentlessly. The hour hand was chasing the minute hand, seconds were swallowing minutes. Days were merging into weeks, weeks into months. And I was slowly losing myself in this flow. As if I was waiting on the edge of great pain, but I had already sunk into its depths without realizing it. It was too late for everything. I was in the deepest place of humiliation, loneliness, and silence.
I had to do something. I felt it more and more each passing day. But I was so weak and tired… There were vines that felt like they were wrapped around my heart—not allowing me to breathe, not allowing me to feel alive. As I couldn’t breathe, I was building invisible walls between me and the world. My screams echoed inside me, I was shouting “I’m here!” But everyone’s ears were deaf. The world and those in it were lost in their own rush, their own calculations. No one had any intention of hearing me.
As I said “I have to do something,” something was slipping away from me. With everything that was diminishing inside me, I was left a little more empty. Yet I knew what I had to do by heart. The steps were clear. But I didn’t have the strength to take those steps. Something was stopping me; something inside me that was invisible but felt.
Love… Yes, it was supposedly the highest, most sacred feeling. But it was also what tired me the most. A person shouldn’t distance themselves so much because of love. Love should bring a person closer to themselves. However, as I loved you, I distanced myself. I silenced the child inside me, the dreams, the poems, the silent joys one by one. Finally, I silenced myself.
And now I’m here. In a moment suspended in the past like the echo of a prayer… Your eyes are still before mine. That autumn wind still seems to be roaming over my skin. But neither you nor I am that old me anymore.
Only silence remained. And a prayer. It did not come true but it was said sincerely.
