Eurovision 2003
Sleep slipped from my eyes, but I held on,
For the first time, the home within my chest
Opened its doors to the world’s vast windows.
The TV was live,
And I was on the verge of a midnight discovery,
Twelve years old,
tasting the first breath of freedom.
Smiling faces, words laced with warmth,
Every five minutes, a new land, a new tongue.
The world was bigger than I’d ever known,
A truth I first glimpsed in 1999,
When I learned that kindness is a universal language.
This was my second revelation,
This time, to the universality of art’s grace.
It was the 2003 Eurovision,
Sending waves of beauty from the screen to my heart.
Sertab Erener was poised to begin,
And my hands trembled with anticipation.
It felt as though I were the one who’d sing and dance,
Would I ever be as free as they were?
Would my creations find applause?
At that time, all I wished for was to write,
To give life to stories like my first,
Where “April Kelyword” came to life,
A name born from the books I read,
The films that filled my dreams,
A name invented by a ten-year-old’s imagination.
Now, when I look back,
I embrace that confident, dream-filled little writer,
With a smile that echoes through time.
The blonde dancers beside Sertab,
Would my body ever grow to be like theirs?
I didn’t wish to be thin,
But to possess the grace, the femininity,
The elegance that they embodied.
To sing with such abandon,
But most of all,
To write words that could be sung.
When the dance ended, the applause rose.
Inside me, a pride that made my hair stand on end,
Hope, and curiosity.
I stayed awake until the votes were tallied,
My mother stirred from her sleep,
Peeking into the room where I watched,
Her voice soft with drowsiness,
“Aren’t you in bed yet?” she smiled.
“Not yet,” I replied,
“The winner hasn’t been announced.”
I fought sleep a little longer,
And my favorite claimed victory.
For the first time, I crawled into bed,
With a peace that I could recall so clearly,
As the morning birds began to greet the dawn.
Inside me, for the first time
The realization that all people,
When they smile, when they thrill,
Are bound by the same thread,
Settled into that peace that cradled me.
Now, with the eyes of my 33-year-old soul,
I watch Sertab’s performance once more.
Though I’ve seen it countless times at different ages,
This time, I understand,
My younger self witnessed it live.
Each time this video plays,
I am there again, twelve years old, watching.
It’s not just the artist and dancers who bridge time,
I am there, too.
My feelings are real,
My truth.
How strange, this shared moment across years,
Both my selves, linked by the same surge of joy,
The same applause.
Art binds us as one,
Creating me in that moment,
Even if no camera captured it.
The lens of my eyes etched those feelings,
Those lessons deep in my heart.
They are always there,
And they are always with me.
