“Erzurum, You Forgot Yourself”
Erzurum,
you wear your flag tightly,
as if it could keep the truth
from leaking through your skin.
You say you are Turk —
loud, proud, permanent.
But the soil knows better.
And so do your bones.
Your cheekbones
carry the map of vanished villages.
Your silence
speaks with an accent
your grandparents were told to forget.
You are not a stranger
to what you deny.
You are not far
from what you erased.
You are Armenian
in the rhythm of your walk,
in the words you almost use,
in the songs that sound familiar
but sting in your throat.
You didn’t steal this land.
You were reshaped by it.
And now you walk
with someone else’s name,
but your blood still murmurs
in the voice of your grandmothers.
Erzurum,
you didn’t conquer.
You forgot.
And forgetting
is its own kind of betrayal.