I had never experienced anything like it. We continued looking at each other for some minutes.
We were standing in the middle of a footpath, trying to figure out which way to go next. We looked at each other, and life stopped. Nothing else was needed than to look at each other. Where we were going was of no importance, nor was the prospect of getting lost along the simple road. We were already home.
We giggled incessantly, smirking like fools, and then giggled even more as we looked at each other.
We eat, go to the washroom, watch movies, and go out shopping, but we can’t do anything on time because we’re always looking at each other and giggling. But what is time anyway?
We talk and try to share everything we have with each other with an eternal thrill for both giving and receiving. How we long for each other, feeling blessed for being united like this. Then our other beauties, weaknesses, fears, and embarrassments come out, the things we cannot speak of to anyone else. With the same smile, compassion, support, and non-judgmental nature, we share all these and give them a safe place.
I was terrified that you wouldn’t be able to find me. It was all supposed to turn out good, one way or another. Above all, though, the glass itself was beautiful. I was surrounded by colorful children. I have learned to laugh, and I have learned that all’s well that ends well. If you haven’t found me, though, I would never have known this state that I’ve dreamed of since childhood. I’ve waited for it for a very long time, maybe even several lifetimes. There’s now a rainbow in my eyes and butterflies in my stomach, because everything blossomed once I found you next to me.
As soon as we met, we sat down and talked for five hours. I realized that what we were experiencing was not just a chance meeting but rather a uniting. When was the last time we were together, I wonder? Was it in the rainforest, when one of us grew taller in an effort to reach the sun as the other wrapped itself around the trunk? Were we chipmunks at the time? Was it in a parallel universe or a dream? Were we particles in the same meteor?
Then suddenly, we were side by side, not separated from each other, not against all odds. We were together with it all, as parts of the others, always side by side and eye to eye.
When I love you, I love everything and everyone, all there is. I have fallen in love with fantastic women, each with an amazing color. I’ve learned about life and love, and I’ve learned to have and have not through their mirrors. They are all with me as I love you. I have enjoyed friends and siblings that were like freshly baked bread, the fertile earth, and the light summer rain. They are always within me, as they always have been, because I love you. The ones I’ve lost, those I couldn’t get enough of and bid farewell to, and those I couldn’t forgive are in me too, albeit in different forms. They are with me at their best, because I love you.
And as I love you, I love not only you. I love everything and everyone that made you what you are, in their presence and their absence with what they’ve created and destroyed. Those who have not yet seen you, who have not heard you and pushed you to your limits, are all my heroes now. The man you grew up with, who through his inspiration, support, and love did the best he could, the man who united you and I was also the man who taught me how to gaze at beauty. Every time you kiss me, he kisses me too. Every time I kiss you, I kiss him too. All those who fell for you and fell for me kiss each other as well. The sketchbooks kiss the study notes, and the marbles kiss the jacks.
I no longer merely believe, because I know now that nothing is lost, nothing is separate from the other, and everything is just transformed.
I have always been in love, and I have always shared this state, for as much as I realized it. As much as I could. I warmed up to it and burned a little, disappointing some people and being disappointed by others. I grew mature through it all, because it seemed like I was learning. For instance, I now know I cannot own someone’s heart. No word, no bribe of love, no degree of emotional exploitation, no companionship, no ongoing situation, and no social recitation is enough to keep me close to a heart, to a soul. All I can do is to become more beautiful by transforming. I can preserve my color while brightening up, incorporating more diversity, and becoming more transparent. I can immediately talk about whatever I’m thinking in the most kind and compassionate way. I can be in a state of trust without fear, able to talk without holding back. We can look in each other’s eyes for minutes, just like we are now. This is what I can do, and perhaps through this, I might prolong and embellish my visit to this magnificent heart.
My uncle Kadir is almost 80 years old. He wakes up at dawn every morning and still works in our village during apricot season. He goes to bed early each night and wakes up in the middle of the night with a burning hunger. He opens the refrigerator and eats whatever he finds there, whether it be watermelon or whatever. And every night, he proclaims, “Ah!” with the same joy.
I want to live in this happiness, joy, and gratitude that increases with each passing day, with each look, each kiss, and each time I think of you. I see you as light-hearted young girl. I see you as a magnificent scorpion woman with passionate eyes and lips. I see every state of you and love them all.
Brown is the color of eternity. I look at that infinite universe with my own reflection shining in the middle of its dark eternity. There’s always been love, and there always will be.

İbrahim Baran Kurt Gunduz