I sat on the edge of the bed.
You smiled.
I am your daughter,
But words mean to you
Something else.

I took your hand,
Telling you I haven’t slept for a year.
I write reflections,
Tame the voices behind my left ear,
Assemble thoughts about the darkness.

I pour a warm, salty liquid
That burns the skin – it doesn’t moisturize.
It helps me,
This pseudo-therapy.
I hide behind my nickname,
So that no one holds me accountable
For what I’m supposed to be.

You also sat up at night,
You read books.
You carried hidden sadness,
I stick a smile on my lips.

I hug people who carry Egregores.
You and I,
we are not afraid of the night.
Your hand is cold.
You smile,
You put together syllables into strange words.

You know that I matter to you.
I pretend to understand
What you wanted to say.

In a moment, it will get hard.
You’ll start screaming like a little boy,
Or again you’ll wait
Until this state of life passes you.

Life?
It’s a kind of space
Where people, because of fear
Bite and scratch
Like frightened, rabid dogs –
And then soothe it
With controlled tenderness.

I sit with you on the edge of the couch
And I think:
We write with the left hand.
We are beings of the night.
Our path was shared –
In fear, to protect a small piece of “I”.

I fear I’ll lose language.
I desperately defend myself against silence.
I dream of non-human languages.
I write words as if I wanted
To cast spells on reality –
Still, it’s not enough.
The anesthesia stopped working.

One day, this will be the end,
Yet as long as I live,
I’ll be the naive one.
That’s what I want.

I choose sweet, sugar-coated hope,
With pink sprinkles,
Telling myself that he, she
Didn’t mean to trample –
Only life pushed them
Into that dark corridor.

My hope
Is not a soft blanket,
This is a heavy, tight helmet.

Beneath the red glow of the lanterned flame,
Two dancers meet and set their steps in line.
One keeps the beat as though it were the same
Since first the devil taught him how to shine.

His fire leaps high; the crowd can feel its heat,
Each practiced turn a well-remembered show.
Yet while the rhythm makes his work complete,
The steps have nowhere further left to go.

I move beside him, not to take his place,
But shift the tune to see what else might play.
The floor becomes a wider, stranger space;
We find new shapes in night as well as day.

He holds his ground with admirable grace,
Each pivot strong, each landing firm and true.
Yet I drift outward, testing empty space,
And find fresh patterns blazing into view.

The devil smiles to see such steps unfold,
For heat alone won’t keep his ballroom warm.
The dancer’s art is not just to be bold,
But bend the blaze into another form.

The crowd may cheer the skill they understand,
Applaud the lines they’ve learned to love before;
But some will watch the one who shifts the sand
And wonder what else waits beyond the floor.

When music dies, the truth is sharp and kind:
The dance that grows will outlast any round.
To keep the flame is art of one clear mind,
But greater still to change the shape it’s found.

A warm wind touched my face.
I walked out into the open space,
I saw a blurry, fading horizon.
Somewhere, you are,
I am here, after a sleepless night,
Writing another reflection,
Tired like an empty battery.

I do not like the masks that shout.
The fight over who is right.
I do not want an analysis.
I touch the bark of the tree,
I hug the birch with my arms.
I see its white pages,
Written with irregular lines,
Torn, fluttering in the wind,
Which I cannot read.

Her eyes look straight into me,
They understand –
How well they understand me.
The rustle of leaves lessens the tension.
Autumn will come soon,
The summer wind whispers to me:
This country, this language,
These people, these doubts.

This is not blind luck,
This is your blessing,
Purple, rainy months, a fleshy heart,
Falling hair, joy when relief comes,
Crying into a pillow –
So as not to disturb another’s dreaming
About the so-called reality.

Bare feet touch the ground.
I tread carefully on the edge of worlds,
To be both here and there
With my integrity.
I am everything and nothing.
I am gestures, epilepsy,
The belief that I see human thoughts,
Inconsistent with what they say.

Blue, sun, and somewhere you.
How good that you stayed.
When everyone was saying:
She is different,
She talks to ghosts.
You stayed, showing me
Your true face.

So many voices
but no one is talking

Sounds of footsteps
but no one is walking

Too many noises
but no one can hear

The deafening whispers
telling me to disappear

©

the new dark age
heart goes out
world goes up
all due to a love of concrete
and iron indignities

buildings grown in the heartland
steel your future
wrap your face in a foreign flag
make it medieval
so fear and superstition
can live on each floor

from above the cityscape
blueprints of a pinball machine
a train to nowhere
like candles on a cake
that will burn someday
when least expected

ladies against the glass
of morning commutes
show too much cleavage
to people on Sunday
gentlemen with their death sticks
conjure the factory smoke
poisoning a life of leisure
these infinite vistas
continue to rise
elevation well in hand
stitched together
but growing apart

the biomechanical soul
a species out of control
mother solitude and her
modern failures
take the stairs to the roof of her mouth
progress leaves an echo
her final words are
empty, foreboding
and full of lead

This sound,
like a friendly wind,
walking through
my lost memories
from irreversibility,
from the cold reality
of indifference
returning to fulfilling promises
as an answer to my invocation

A unique, sweet sound
is calling me now,
after twenty-five years.
I bought that ticket,
sitting in my narrow seat,
holding in my hand
a piece of uncertainty
that deforms
every time I get on board.

I used to take so many trains:
traces, luggage, running passengers,
waiting, wasting minutes.
They brought me,
step by step,
station by station,
to this voice,
to this tone of being,
in tune with silver threads.

The windows are yet closed.
I carry in my cells
the code of Alef,
a crystalline illusion.

The lens caves in
and swells outward,
seeing the elusive past
still living in me,
playing under a different sun,
through elusive existences.

We came as twenty-one souls.
Twenty I found.
One was lost—
the one closest
to my breathing truth.

The final deal:
Am I losing
or will I rest
in deeper words?

Yes.
I did it for you,
changing alternative worlds,
pulsing around me,
invitations not accepted.

I open the gate
to a new home:
to warmth,
to creativity,
made by sweet recognition
of blooming Fall to come
waiting patiently
for your move
for your not-yet-published story.