I fell in love for the first time in my life when I was nineteen years old. I fell in love with a girl I met here, in Tartu, in February 2012. It was a brief but powerful romance and it certainly left a deep mark in me. Since then, whenever I thought of Tartu I thought of her, and whenever I thought of her I also thought of Tartu. Their ideas became interlinked. This little text is a poetical exploration of that memory.
The Light of The Lilies
For Lilla
I wait for you,
While I drink the light
Reflected in the river covered by lilies.
Behind me, the ivy walls come back to life
Until they form a silent maze:
A prison for evasive memories
Like burning spiders,
Like fire that roars in the sky
And grows until it disappears.
Under my feet, the living mud sleeps.
It unfolds its puddles like mirrors,
Windows that peek into incomplete worlds.
These are our unspoken promises.
And so, I realize I am made of dust, of clay,
Of manure,
I am a spawn of dirt and wind,
Of the same breeze that moves the seas and your hair.
Thus, I acknowledge that I am you, but you are not mine.
That you are me, but I am not yours.
Then I kiss you by the fountain,
And I hold you inside me,
The way one holds one’s breath
Under the frozen water.
But you escape like smoke
Between my guts,
Leaving a scent in my bones
Of night and snow,
Of talc and milk.
I follow you through every street in this city,
Where the houses are low and old,
And where every door opens at your step,
Rustling and squeaking,
Imitating the sound of the late morning, tired and sleepless.
I run after you,
But I can never catch you.
You laugh, and you mock me
And your teeth tinkle like bells
That burst in my eyes like a white thunder,
Unraveling my body in delicate wisps of smoke.
