Micul Istanbul

I love this small and naive city. With its humble buildings lulled to sleep each night by the constant whisper of the sea.
Its boats rock back and forth, all trapped in a nostalgic memory of summer. The mosques point spears against the stomach of the sky. The churches winking their metal roofs to the sun. Even in winter.
I love its streets and the way they wash themselves of people during rainy days. The coffee shops that smell of affection to the wandering soul. The music stumbling drunk from bars to be carried home by passing thoughts.
I love the way it crushes the egos of those that ask too much from it and the way it smiles to those few that offer it their enthusiasm.

It has a romantic flair to it. It smells of defeated idealism because you see, This place is built on the uncountable dreams and fantasies of strangers, that time patiently withers into oblivion.
Here, I have split my heart open with the blunt edge of a thousand heartaches and I will rather see it ripped to shreds before I have it completely sealed. Despite the way my affection always heads for closed doors.
In this small village of souls, mine bumps into casual lies that make all truths questionable. The confusion we create for one another has left a curved line on my mouth. A smile to remind me in the mirror of how strangely we decorate pain.
Perhaps the saddest aspect is the way women peer within them sometimes, with coroner eyes, looking for a reason to their lack of affection. Not all the time, just when all the eyes of the world seem to be averted. I read the worry. I felt the discouragement. I felt guilty.
I wanted to hold them. I wanted them to follow me in savage journeys around the continent. To show them that there are roses and wine out there, not just pizza and beer. I supposed I wanted them to look at me, carefully. To understand this uncontrollable chaos I free in the evening when I take off my tie and put on my leather jacket. In the long run, I never dreamed of fixing women, I just hoped that they might fix me.
These women are no doubt the expression of our city. The broken beauty of something mistreated by experience and harassed by its memory. And yet, it endures. Because the city turns into a whole world when you're in love with one of its inhabitants.