CHRISTOS CHARAKOPOULOS

 

 

At Every Station

 

I began the journey with empty hands,

the wind urging on my steps

like a mute companion.

 

The horizon unfolded like a book,

its pages white, awaiting

to be filled with experience.

 

I became a river

flowing without homeland,

a tongue that speaks to unfamiliar winds.

 

Bridges rose before me,

built from voices I had never known,

yet carried within me always.

 

And when I reached the destination,

I was no longer the same -

only the journey remained unchanged within me.

 

I Was Not Born To Hate, But To Love

 

I was not born with hands closed,

but with palms open wide.

I was not born to build walls,

but to raise bridges across every gap.

 

In a world filled with thorns,

I learned to hold flowers.

Not to hide the pain,

but to remind that beauty is nourished with love.

 

Every wound of mine becomes a song,

every tear, a moon that lights the night.

I was not born to scatter darkness,

but to offer the gift of light.

 

I was born to love,

to become the “together”

where the world creates the “apart.”

 

CHRISTOS CHARAKOPOULOS

 

CHRISTOS CHARAKOPOULOS is a PhD candidate in Creative Writing at the Department of Early Childhood Education, University of Thessaly (Greece). He holds a Master’s degree in the Teaching of Language and Literature from the University of Nicosia (Cyprus). He completed a three-year seminar program in Creative Writing at the "Tabula Rasa" workshop in Athens. He works as a Greek language teacher in secondary education. His poems and short stories have been published in both print and online literary magazines and anthologies in Greece and abroad, in English, Italian, and Serbian.