and when night fell,
I drew heavy curtains over the translucent ones.
With my mind, I gazed somewhere into the black sky
I thought I too might glimpse
a bright star
that would announce the birth of a great one.
The seas shimmer blue
somewhere in the darkness.
At its shore,
a man strokes a woman’s long black hair.
Oh, darkness has descended.

In the rivers where there are many fish,
the paths are winding.
The fisherman longs to get there.
Fast rivers are more dangerous
like unfulfilled dreams that we have forgotten.
Every morning, the fisherman goes out to fish,
dreaming of reaching those depths.

the dreams that leave me behind your back,
love in autumn,
and lying on brittle leaves.
There’s a long road to reach you,
and with every dawn,
I wither away, thinking of you.

A top circle  and altogether a different dimension,
high heels and not quite obscene...
You are the misalignment of status,
worthy of the path of light,
yet the bearer of a hopeless platform
a train discarded into a dark world,
with a faint desire for love.
Hell is on Earth.

I came down with the initial paranoia of love,
because I was unwell. I couldn’t read anything anymore.
“You’re a useless carcass. A rotten carcass,”
repeated two women with provincial accents.

They were saying, “She was born, a matryoshka was born
and here’s another one.
Exactly the same.”

“No. I don’t want to be here,” I kept saying.
I thought, this isn’t right.
I need to repent and drive out the demons.
But those women weren’t going anywhere.

On the third night without sleep, I finally dozed off.
Be

No more voices.
Yet still quiet silence.

We met in the psychiatric hospital.
Yes, there are so many demons here.
I can’t hide from anyone.
For now, they’ve put me in isolation. Alone.
I became a subject of observation.
What could be worse than that? Nothing.

God.
I stared at the white ceiling.
A single black spider above my head.
I wondered if I’d transform into some kind of insect, like Gregor.
****, I love Kafka.
Yeah, I think I broke my camera.
I think I broke it. It upset me.
And then they called me to eat
fish in French mayonnaise.

Boiled plum jam,
and the wind took away my hat.
In the morning,
when I spread black plum jam on toast,
I remember the taste
of the sweetest love.
Just boil the plum
and sweeten it...

the color of cinnabar
bluish-red fluid spills,
reminding me of a pearl.
I loathe that one day,
somewhere on Perovskaya,
in some bar.
I hate every foul memory
that tastes like blood,
like rust.
A city
where hot wind blows,
dust clings to sweaty skin.
You sit on the stairwell, endlessly tired,
and tears won’t fall
the antidepressants have made you
forget how to cry.
You haven’t wept in so long
not even for the things
most worth crying for,
when once
you could cry for an hour.
Vile summer!