russia

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