Yes, I am guilty.
I know something.
And I am brave enough not to confess what I know.
Yes, I am brave.
My essence will fill yours so completely
that your soul will ache,
your heart will sting—
You will burn.
Yes, I am afraid, still.
If you cannot conquer your fear, you are human.
And I am still human.
But you—?
At the wolves’ table,
you lost the last trace of humanity within you.
Then you wandered the nights too much
and darkened as much as they did.
You lay with vampires,
rose with them.
Yes, you drink blood.
Sunny days are far from you.
You have built a trap for yourself.
And the hope it once gave
is now a prison—
Peace is gone,
conscience is gone!
Yes, I am coming for you.
The night is ruthless, the night is wet.
It falls like sorrow as if the full moon is crying—
a mad, tormented moon.
The wolves are howling.
Perhaps one of them is you.
Can’t you decide?
Will you be a vampire and drink blood?
Or will you become a wolf?
Either way, in the end,
you will make me
your captive.
My steps slow down
as if my helpless gaze is praying.
I cannot see, yet I can feel.
My heartbeat quickens!
“Don’t be a prisoner,” you say.
“Don’t come to me.”
Yet I feel your warmth in my blood.
My captivity to your love—
a venom.
Your breath is so fast now
as if I am no longer breathing.
My body is numb.
My feet, my steps—
as if they no longer exist.
I have grown wings toward you.
My God, why have you brought me to the devil?
How did you allow this?
A wolf? A vampire?
Could he be an angel?
Wasn’t it him who told me not to come?
I should have listened to my dreams.
I should have betrayed the cursed knowingly!
Perhaps this was all a dream.
A wolf, a vampire—how absurd.
But now it is too late
to distinguish dreams from reality.
I am in his bed.
Unlike the darkness of the night,
everything is clouds—
white, lacy clouds.
I am aware, yet still lost in the past.
I am in another realm.
Only my hands,
only they still feel—
but my body is now his.
I see his eyes.
It’s as if I’m in a dream.
Had I already said that?
Words no longer suffice.
His lips—
Even all of Shakespeare’s sonnets
could not describe them.
Insufficient…
Fleshy, soft, and slightly thick—
I have known their taste for centuries.
He is my man.
I am his woman.
Have you ever touched a fresh rosebud?
Felt its color, its softness
against your lips?
That velvet,
that sweetness—
Sweeter than honey.
Yet so firm!
Every word he speaks, every move he makes, is a command.
He enslaves me willingly.
I do not wish to break free from his spell.
His lips—like the knight
who pulled the sword from the stone in Legends?
Such passion!
Not even the ruler of the world could save me from him.
His eyes—
those maddening eyes.
It all started with a spark.
First in my dreams,
I saw him.
He came from his eyes.
Like lightning,
he struck me.
I searched for that gaze.
I scoured all humanity,
but found no equal for him on Earth.
Time seemed to move faster,
as I neared him.
My eyes glowed.
He dropped a piece of fire into my heart.
Before him, I had never burned.
Every part of me was cold.
My soul was cold.
My heart was aching.
For no reason at all.
My young, tender hands—
even before they touched his,
were already tired…
Beril Yabar
