oneiric

part memory; part dream; part folktale

oneiric; from the greek word oneiros; dream.

containing a dreamlike, surreal quality.

****

a collection of poems— part memory, part dream, part folktale ;

---

i don’t like writing about my core memories;

things that are tied so deeply to who i am.

it’s like poking the wound, over and over;

distorting the sacred. 

every happy memory is inevitably
wrapped in sadness. 

the two cannot be separated. 

where there is joy;
there is also pain.

the wounds still unhealed, 
untouched, for decades.

people that tormented my childhood;

memories,

that 
ruined the parts of me; that feel permanent;

every time i write,

it distorts.

as if my own mind is trying to protect me,

so much that 

i no longer fully remember what’s real;

or what’s imagined.

---

//

when i think about my childhood,

there is a particular figure 
that haunts its memory.

in my daily life i never speak of him, 
and most days i forget he existed altogether.

but he lives, like an ugly stain,
in the parts of me that were vulnerable,

and child-like,

that wanted someone to love her;

the way a father is supposed to love 
a daughter.

and every now and then i’m back in that house,
alone with him.

the hallways are long, and impossibly
narrow.

the house settles, release its 
ugly breath,

and

i’m reminded of his eyes.

the particular blue that i don’t think i’ll ever forget, 
or the look in them, when he’s angry.

that look that’s so unstable that
i don’t know what he’ll do next.

splintered door frames,
broken things, left forgotten in a corner.

the house feels swollen and heavy, as i listen to the 

sounds of his footsteps, 
thudding behind me as he,

chases me up the stairs.

he splinters the wood of my bedroom door.
and if i could hide,

i would.

but there’s nowhere to go.

**

i don’t know what’s better,
the father that abandoned me,

or the memory of
the one i got 
in his place.

//

малина / raspberry

the teeth of the clock echo in my eardrums, startling me awake;
and i am luminescent in the first light of morning.

the russian summers always held a nip in the air, 
despite the hot, scorching sun of 
day.

our mornings carried a chill with them—

patiently lurking,
just beneath the bones.

i thought america would teach the cold to leave me.

to warm the hollow, frost-bitten
 innards
just below the flesh.

but the chill was always here,

no matter where my feet would 
take me.

i am seven years old again, running around the 
tall vines of my summer home.

my grandfather bends a stem, handing me a raspberry. i pick the ant
off before eating; 

and now, raspberries will always taste like him.

the cold hasn’t found me yet,
not really

//

the clocks melted on the windowpane;
the hands spinning faster and faster,
her voice growing fainter.

sweat slicked my palms and i blink; 
“Юля,” her voice was strict, and i knew there was no pushing her.

the door closed in my face,
her breathing getting heavier on the other side.
i heard the uneven rhythm of her heart, 
echoing in my eardrums, and it felt like

time was laughing at us;

with 
                every 
                           second
                  that 
           ran
out.

//

Salvador Dalí, The Persistence of Memory, 1931

//

ты как лаская малина; а я,
[ колючая крапива] ; всё тает на
на нежном языке.

english translation:

you’re like a 
gentle raspberry; 
and i’m the
[ prickly nettle / poison ivy ] ; 

all melts on [your] tender tongue.

//

“when grandma dies, you and тётя ира won’t come back here, anymore.”

her small, round face
distorted into an expression that only adults would wear,
and i thought it too crude and vulgar,
for her lovely face.

“насть,” i breathed her name, bringing my knees up to rest onto my chin.

“why would you say something like that?”
she smiled, and despite her age,
the wisdom that rested in the sharp lines of her mouth, made my chest tighten.
“it’s just something i know to be true.”

and all these years later,
i hate that what she knew then,
ended up
becoming
real.

//

[photo: russia is big— and here, i can’t be found.]

---

fingernails gently grating

against the fibers,

pull apart the meat.

the damp, earthy smell still lingers in the early hours,

the forest breathes its heavy breath, and

i pull at another one, the mushroom cap bleeding crimson—

red and dotted, the perfect little

death-wrapped

gift.

somewhere far away, a deep,

aching, groan resounds—

                                                            the forest,

                                                           now awakened,

                                            ancient and forbearing,

 its throat

opens to swallow

all those who

do not belong.

//

//

“they will die before you ever see them again.”

his manic blue eyes glittered, the radio static

trickling abruptly through the vacant, abandoned

two-story house.


the clock hand spun on its axis,

the gravity of his words

pulling me closer and closer, to

its center.

                                                    [ melted clocks ]

               wretched black numbers drooling over the windowpane,

                                                         [ they opened ]

                                               [ their sharp teeth. ]

//

we stood on the brink,
four feet on our grandfather’s land, four hands outstretched to the chasm below :

one lone, dark berry grew on the edge,
its leaves pointing downwards.

i padded closer, the earth crumbling below my weight,
toppling to the ditch 
underneath;

the mouth of hell looked back at us, dark and unassuming.

“what do you think is down there, насть ?” i asked her, 
hands reaching for the berry. 

“don’t eat it.” her childlike voice sounded. “it’s poisonous.”

 вороний глаз.
 /  crow’s eye. /

somewhere, a distant whistle sounded in the woods, as a warning.

my hands plucked the berry; 
it looked harmless,
exactly like a blueberry.

i opened my mouth, cupping my hands—
the chasm opened his,
grabbing me, and
pulling me
beneath.

//

//

my grandmother was a healer.
a doctor.
she knew what plants could kill
and which would
help.

her worn, gentle hands pressed into my stomach, her brows threaded.

“how much of it have you eaten?”

“да ничего я не ела, баб, я ж тебе говорила!” i answered, petulant and childish.

she smacked my arm, not believing me in the slightest.

“how much of it have you eaten?” she repeated, her voice echoing in the small, tiny one-room soviet apartment.

somewhere deep inside the walls, the metal groaned awake.

the memory warped and distorted,
dissolving into ash.

//

i trace the lines of icarus on my skin,
and my breath catches;

my grandmother sits in her rocking chair, the vast abyss
hanging above the crown of her head.
she’s telling me about him,
and about his father, daedalus.

deep inside the russian woods,
we can see the milky way;

she tells me someone spilt a cup of milk;
right onto the open sky.

and i can see it; someone walking onto the path,
right above our heads.

she finishes the tale; and looks down at me in surprise,
“why are you crying?”

i’m young,
too young to fully understand the dark yet,
but a part of it reaches out a hand and touches me,
anyway;

“i’m crying because—” i stare, open faced at the dark-ridden sky, “why didn’t his father save him? why didn’t he save icarus?”

my grandmother laughs, surprised.

later, she’ll recount this tale to me, when i’m older;
touched by the wisdom in a child’s
pure heart.

how could a father leave his child?  how could daedalus not save his only son?

maybe the fall of icarus;
started with his father’s 
hubris,
and not his own.

---

---

i was seven when my bird died.

we were on our dacha—
at our summer home, when it happened.

he was green and perfect and utterly mine. 
the way all animals naively belonged to me, at that age.

my cousin’s little blue parrot was the only one left in the cage, 
grief-stricken without its mate.

i had been crying all morning;  and what’s worse— i had to get on a plane and go back to
america.

my grandfather took one look at my face and concocted his fairytale.

“he flew away,” he said, pulling me into his arms. “he knew you were leaving and went to find you.”

“really?” i asked, my eyes swollen and rimmed an ugly, deep red.

“mhmmm,” his voice was rough—years of smoke worn into it, but his hands were warm, and strong, and kind.

 “i bet he’s flying to you right now, looking for your plane. and then you’ll see him out the window, flying next to you—all the way back to your home in america.”

“ ‘tosha!’ you’ll call him,” my grandfather’s large, bushy eyebrows arched, and a deep chuckle escaped him.

he became more and more fond of his tale the more he talked,  “and ‘tweet tweet!’ he’ll respond back to you.”

i smiled, entirely believing him.

maybe my love for fairytales started with him,

right from the beginning.

my kind-hearted grandfather,

the keeper of stories.

---

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