Colder inside this house
Than in the evening sun outside.
I suppose old buildings
Breathe, like all
Living things do.

Aloneness. Never lonely.
Why was I meant for
Solitude? The despair it
Provokes within those who
Wish to

Connect is as much my
Burden as theirs.
To belong to and own.
Spacelessness. Sharing
My whole self. No.

I wish them more warmth
Than anyone will ever find
With me,
Yet I hear the voices
Of mothers shielding

Daughterhearts with double
Edged shields;
Don't be afraid
Child. It's only the
Devil.

I suppose all I'll
Ever need is another odd
Soul like mine, waving from
Inside another freezing, distant
Dwelling.

My hands are winters.
My chest is a cave so cold
My tears well up
Like mounds of
Snowflakes, and fly.

Having tempered myself beyond
My limits, I withdraw to default;
The arctic within; home. Your
Fire is blinding. I only have
Ice for you.

smaller than the table, smaller than the chair,
smaller than my father’s big boots.
like a potato, that is how small I dreamt myself.
because in spring, they put the potatoes
in the ground and that was it,
till autumn they were not disturbed any more.

I dreamt myself in the planting pocket, among them,
sleeping sweetly in the darkness,
turning on either side in summer
and then falling asleep again.

and to wake up in autumn still sleepless
and unclean like my brothers
and when it is time to dig us up, to jump above
and yell: stop digging, stop digging,
for I shall willingly come home,
if you put me back in spring,
and in spring I am the first one
to be thrown back in the planting pocket
and so on, to always stay and sleep,
from the planting pocket to the basement and from the basement to the planting pocket,
for many years, deeply asleep and forgotten.

Ioan Es. Pop
translated by Beatrice Ahmad