there was my favorite field with wildflowers, up the lake,
in the country that no longer exists.
i went to walk my dog there, the flapping of her tail — in the country that is no longer on the maps —
i raced her to the hills, evergreen in sunshine halo —
in the country i once knew as a child —
i used to jump rope and watch the rain draw parallel lines with its heavy drops
in the country long gone.
today
i’m feeling homesick
and standing in the same place
i still see my own child’s steps imprinted on the grass
there was my secret spot near the oak,
my oak where dog’s bones lie
in the early spring
when the ground is waking up
i’ll never be able to tell you what happened and how it felt
but my soul will forever remember
because it left the fingerprints
on the warm fogged window
on a quiet night,
that night i lost my home
while so many people lost theirs,
the silence slicing my delicate heart with blades and burning in my ears,
giving way to the noise
my father’s yelling at me to shut up — the lightnings roared —
my mother’s warm hand on my shoulder — a sign you could not trust —
both laughing at my face.
i think some part of me resisted to believe
as if i’d gotten sick but only with my heart.
i don’t remember much
but i remember printing out my poems
sticking them in restrooms
because the big brother is always watching
and people saw them, i knew they did and they knew they weren’t alone
some even said they heard Akhmatova in me,
said it screamed “revolution”
but nothing changed
a blank shot into a white wall
because sometimes we’re too small
and we’re a part of something bigger
we are the brushstrokes on a portrait of the killer
it’s the obnoxious machine of human decay and deep madness
i’m pleading guilty
and taking my life with me
through high trees i can see the future
i can feel it in my father’s voice
and in the tv screaming in the background of his mind
and by the way my mother’s getting anxious, old,
i know it by the looks on people’s faces crinkling their noses at people of the same kind who happen to love each other,
i know it’s true by the way people die
or by the way some never come back from behind bars
and i’m running, running away
speaking the language that doesn’t belong to me
forgetting myself in the hum of radio static around
alienation took everything.
since i gave up on the dearest part of me
and walked away,
this twilight has been darker than my bruises.
the wandering never ends.
i’m out of context, a soft glance of the sun during the coldest winter
where can i go?
and who the fuck am i supposed to be?
i see nice places, never a vessel of a soul
there is no other motherland
you only have one chance
and i no longer have mine
at least you can’t imprison me
i’ve already sentenced myself to the life without a meaning
and to that fateful night
the night we all lost everything