ASTRIT LULAJ, DURRËS, ALBANIA AT THE SPHINX, WITHOUT YOU
You cannot know.
Nor could I have known.
Even had I been a seismologist,
I could never have foreseen that earthquake.

Alone, seated on the steps of the Sphinx,
watching the sun descend into the west,
melting into the meeting place of sea and sky,
I drank it in with my eyes…

Then,
I breathed the damp air,
the sandy dust, the seagulls,
and the boats.
Everything, everything around me,
objects and creatures alike,
seemed peaceful.

I did not want to be alone in that moment,
filled with such immense absence,
without you.

But very quickly, that oasis
turned into a desert.
It seemed
that my vast emptiness was insatiable,
unable to be filled.
And then,
I felt tremors, a shaking…
An earthquake was unfolding within me.

The sun faded from my retina,
and my eye became a sea.
My tears, like blinded seagulls,
searched aimlessly for a shore.
Now, the shore, the boats,
the air heavy with sand and dust—
all of it
I was recreating from within myself,
woven from grief.

Nothing,
nothing could be beautiful
without you,
without us.

The couples embracing nearby
gazed on in quiet contentment.
Of course,
it was not the Sphinx that trembled;
the earthquake existed only within me.

And I rose.
I could not remain there alone,
though I hoped to return again.
But next time,
only with you.

*Note: THE SPHINX (SFINKSI) – A stone-built coastal platform in Durrës, Albania, which resembles the mythological figure when viewed from above. Astrit Lulay