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ß áîþñÿ çàâåðøåíü, áî âîíè
Òðàïëÿþòüñÿ.
ß áîþñÿ çàâåðøèòè, áî ùî ÿê
Öå ïîìèëêà.
Õîäæó ïî æèòòþ, íà÷å ãðàþ â ñàïåðà,
Òóò òðàâà ³ òèøà, à òóò - á³ëü ³ ñìåðòü.
Âèáðàëà çàêëÿêòè òà äèâèòèñÿ
Íà ïîëå,
Íà÷å, òàê ãàðíî, ÿê çàáóòè
Ïðî ì³íè,
Íà÷å, òàê ö³êàâî, ÿê äèâèòèñü íà îáð³é,
Ëèø íå äèâèñü âíèç,
Ëèø íå ïðîáóé ðîçãëåä³òè
Òðàâà öå ÷è í³.
Äèâëþñü ³ äèâëþñü,
Äåíü çì³íþº í³÷,
Ïîëå ïðåêðàñíå, ãîðèçîíò ìð³é.
Ìîæå òàì - çåëåí³øå?
Ìîæå òàì - Çåìëÿ Îá³öÿíà?
À ìîæå - òî âñþäè òàê³ ïð³ðâè òà óðâèùà?
³äðîñòèòè ñîá³ êðèëà ÷è â³äðîñòèòè ñîá³ ÿéöÿ?
×îãî íå âèñòà÷àº, ùîá êðîêóâàòè âïåðåä?
Ñîíöå çàõîäèòü, ïîëå çîëîòèòüñÿ,
Òèøà ñïàäàº, çåìëÿ ñïèòü.
Çðîáèòè êðîê äàë³ ÷è
Ìèëóâàòèñÿ çäàëåêó?
Êðîêóþòü òàê âñ³, õîäÿ÷³ ìåðö³ â ïîë³, ëèø â êîæíîãî -
Ñâî¿ ì³íè çàðèò³.
àäðåñ: https://www.poetryclub.com.ua/getpoem.php?id=1012997
ðóáðèêà: Ïîåç³ÿ, ˳ðèêà êîõàííÿ
äàòà ïîñòóïëåíèÿ 12.05.2024
For me, childhood is the time when there is not enough time in a day. You can argue that there's not enough time on any given day, but in my case, it looks like it was the only time when I couldn't wait for any next minute to come faster. What was also strange is that I was still immensely enjoying every minute while it passed. It was just this hunger to see [i]what's next[/i].
What's waiting for me outside? Were my friends already waiting for me outdoors? What will granny make for lunch? I don't think I ever tasted anything better than my granny's buckwheat dish with butter and fresh tomatoes. Sometimes my grandpa made his special scrambled eggs, that I wasn't able to replicate since, though I'm sure I know all the ingredients. I think our grandmas and grandpas have a special ingredient that you unlock later in life, like a new level in a game, when you suddenly acquire this superpower to make everything taste better and unique.
I remember going outside really early because I couldn't wait anymore for the day to begin. Noone was yet outside. My grandma didn't want to let me go so early, but I managed to convince her. Honestly, I don't know where all the willpower comes that parents and grandparents have to deny something for little blue-eyed and red-cheeked girls that ask you so nicely? I don't have children yet, but I already allow them anything they want just imagining their eyes staring at me with that desire and hunger and hope.
I remember that I liked to be outside so much. Looking for rocks, looking for flowers and ladybugs, gathering leaves, chasing butterflies. And it wasn't only [i]enough[/i], it was [i]everything[/i]. Now I don't go outside without a reason. I need to listen to audiobooks or podcasts, or someone on the phone call. Otherwise, I don't see the [i]point[/i]. And I don't see the point in being outside just for butterflies or sunny bunnies. I want that feeling back when you don't want the day to end.
Back then the seasons' change wasn't as sure a fact (I mean, summer came 6 years in a row, but it could skip the 7th, right?), and each of those seasons was a separate party to celebrate. The wonder of summer cherries, the snowflakes, the blossoming spring trees, the golden carpet of fallen leaves, and all the wonderful smells: strawberries with sourcream, new books, a new color pen, colorful candies, and milk chocolate. I think when we are children we are little buddhas, understanding the universe much more fully than our parents, without the knowledge about quantum physics, but with all the knowledge we need. Like small curly gods with our hands in dirt and shirts in chocolate. I remember how daddy gave me several cents for ice cream and I thought he was a superman. He had a job, that paid him money for how awesome he was, and for that money, you could buy candies. He surely figured life out.
Do you remember that feeling of being marvelous? When mother hugs you and whispers: "I love you" and your first thought is: "Of course you love me. I'm me!". Back then you didn't need to win the Nobel Prize to deserve someone's love. You just had it already. Why is it that growing up you start to fight to constantly achieve more to be loved, especially by yourself? As your body forms and you grow your adult teeth you start to wonder if you add anything being here. Are you created with a purpose or are you just a glitch, a result of that specific spermatozoid reaching that specific ovary cell? Maybe it's the biology class that shook your belief in your divine design and higher purpose on Earth when you discovered that just as simple there could be others in your place and you were just a lucky one.
I want to teach my children that leading small lives doesn't mean leading insignificant ones. I want to teach them that you're important and deserve to be loved even if you're an average person without anything to offer. I want to teach them that if you give everything you have to anything you do, you already lead a big life. Now it's time to believe this myself before those children are born.
àäðåñ: https://www.poetryclub.com.ua/getpoem.php?id=924391
ðóáðèêà: Ïðîçà, Ëèðèêà ëþáâè
äàòà ïîñòóïëåíèÿ 07.09.2021
Why is it that humans gravitate towards self-destruction so much? And I'm not talking about how we're going about destroying our one and only planet right now (though we're super successful in this too), but about the festering drive inside each individual to choose something that isn’t good for them. It requires titanic willpower to eat a healthy diet, but it goes without a tiny bit of effort to buy a KFC meal. Not only that, sometimes you'll go out of your way to get that meal, though you didn't lift a finger, or should I say the blender lid, to make yourself a smoothie. Is it the universal law that commands the system to reach the highest level of entropy or is it elemental laziness that we developed to conserve energy to fight tigers (I don't see any from my window here, do you?)
We are the complex systems, like huge bubbles that somehow managed to isolate themselves from the physical world around us, that work really hard to maintain that integrity against the natural laws of physics. Do you know how many calories you burn each day to just preserve the temperature inside your body that is different from the outside? You can drink a glass of water with ice to boost your metabolism by 10-15% for 20 min just because your body tries to warm the insides of your stomach. When we die, the chaos of the universe, that being the entropy, pulls our bodies apart cell by cell, atom by atom until it reaches the blessed state of dust. In perfect thermodynamic equilibrium with the surrounding dirt, obeying the inevitable arrow of time. Our life is a constant struggle of that bubble of the space, that found the power to isolate itself, to stay apart from the rest, to protect that space that we call "us" and even to make more bubbles that have the same soap pattern on the surface as we do.
àäðåñ: https://www.poetryclub.com.ua/getpoem.php?id=924297
ðóáðèêà: Ïðîçà, Ëèðèêà ëþáâè
äàòà ïîñòóïëåíèÿ 06.09.2021
I have one day that I hold close to my heart and cherish dearly. It's not even a full day, only one sunny afternoon spent with the people I love in the most magical place. Curious how happy memories fade, even the important ones, leaving just the afterglow of emotions that give you the feel of the memory, but not the actual facts.
I don't remember how the day started. It was just some ordinary lazy summer morning. What was not ordinary was the call from my father to go gather mushrooms in the forest nearby our hometown. I didn’t know anything about mushrooms, such as where or how to find them. The only thing I knew was that if you wanted to gather any mushrooms you should start really early in the morning, even before the break of dawn. It was still quite early in the morning for my taste, but I knew it was highly unlikely that we'd find any when we got there. Strangely, I was annoyed at my father's asking. I already had plans with my husband (some important ones, I'm sure, though I don't remember what they were). It was late to try and fit the whole forest trip into what remained of the day and neither I nor my husband had any interest in hunting mushrooms, but it was unusual enough of him to ask that we couldn't take a rain check without feeling like assholes. So we found the best clothes and shoes we could for the task since we didn't have any clue what to wear on such an occasion, got some snacks and went to meet my father at the bus station. The route to a nearby city went through a forested region and you could practically step out at any moment and wander into the woods in between the cities. That was our grand plan.
Upon meeting my dad it became obvious that he wasn't planning on gathering any mushrooms himself and just wanted an outing. I don't know what caused this; he was the type to spend his Sundays reading books and cooking something special, talking about how wonderful it would be to go to the forest on his next day off, not actually setting off on outdoor adventures in the middle of his weekend. He wore his casual clothes, stained and a bit worn out, that he wasn't afraid to ruin on our excursion, but still, it pained me that he didn't have any good activewear to use, not to mention good shoes to wear in the muddy forest. He had bought a new suit for work, but never wanted to spend the family’s spare money on anything related to his hobbies. Except for some new parts for his beloved computer, which were carefully considered and saved up for for several months.
We took the next bus, with my husband and I constantly chatting and Dad ever reading some new book on his phone. It was strange that he obviously wanted us to come with him, but he wasn't involving us in conversations that much and was really pensive and inwardly absorbed. We asked the bus driver to stop in 20 minutes and in that time my father gathered himself enough to present us with his best cheerful, talkative, thought-provoking self.
You never knew where your next conversation would lead with him. You could start with some very casual talk about your work and end up discussing black holes or USSR history. He liked to baffle people, surprise them with unfamiliar topics, spark discussions with unexpected questions. When I think about him, I imagine him sitting on his terrace, smoking with an ever-present twinkle in his dark eyes and a half-smile, as if he was reading you like an open book, knowing what you would say, what you would feel and still being interested in sharing those with you. There was a strange mixture of joy and sadness often underlying our conversations that I tried to guess the meaning of. I thought I understood him but did I ever? I think he shared a lot with me, but not too much of the stuff that I wouldn't understand, being so young and naive and brought up on his favorite fantasy books. I still discover a lot of the real-world truths that I couldn't ever have imagined, that he sheltered me from in our magical world.
Unfortunately, I don't remember what we talked about then, walking in the calm forest, looking for non-existent mushrooms. I remember the sunlight streaking through the brilliant green trees, I remember listening to his conversation with my husband and following a bit behind them, just contemplating the walk, the world around, musing that this marvelous place was so close to home and I never came here. How come I claim to love forests and I’d never traveled to this one that was practically on my doorstep? My annoyance at this unexpected mushroom-gathering trip quickly bled out and turned into a sense of wonder and quiet happiness.
Several hours into our walk, we encountered a stray dog. It was a strange sight in the middle of the woods, but no odd things ever looked unusual with my father involved. Of course, we would meet a dog to keep us company. It was the usual street dog, very friendly and seeming happy to share this walk with us. He kept me company while I was trailing behind my dad and husband. I wanted to give them time to get to know each other better and to simply enjoy and listen to my husband being baffled by my dad's discussions. My husband didn't have a father growing up, and my dad didn't have the son he always wanted. It was only us, me and my sister, his princesses, but nonetheless only girls. My father couldn't miss the opportunity to teach my husband something and the latter gave him the much needed attention and praise of a boy who was starting to navigate adult life by himself. I could share a bit of my father's attention, couldn't I?
I remember us finding a big fallen tree and sitting nearby to rest. My father had pulled out some apples and a little pocket knife and started to peel them, sharing them with us. It was so strange to see him bring those apples on our walk and have the means to peel them in the middle of nowhere. He looked so at peace there like it was his own porch and not a fallen tree in an unfamiliar forest. I always noticed that he liked to sit and peel apples before eating them, quietly thinking about something and sometimes talking to himself. When we made fun of him for this, he would joke that he liked talking to a smart person for a change.
And so, after finding two small mushrooms and a dog we ventured back to the road to catch a bus home, saying goodbye to our new friend and this wonderous slow place in the middle of everyday hustle. The day started as a regular summer day and finished as one of my happiest memories. I have one photo from that magical forest, which I still can't believe was so close to my old home.
Do you know that scientists proved that you change a memory when you think of it? The memories we like the most are our most crafted lies. I'm glad my mind shied away from any memories of my father after his unexpected death so that I can hope with a small amount of confidence that this day is unchanged and imprinted into my mind as it truly happened. Just one dreamy summer afternoon in the forest.
àäðåñ: https://www.poetryclub.com.ua/getpoem.php?id=924296
ðóáðèêà: Ïðîçà, Ëèðèêà ëþáâè
äàòà ïîñòóïëåíèÿ 06.09.2021
I was pondering this the whole morning today. Probably because I was hungry and didn’t want to start my day and do something useful (for whom though?). If you ask your husband, your children, your mom, they will tell you without a moment's hesitation: “Yes, of course”. Why would you add “of course” at the end of that? Is it that obvious? Your life probably matters to them. They would be sad and they would be hurt if they love you and you disappeared into the void of space around us. Like you weren’t there at all.
Is that enough to justify your existence? That your mom loves you? I don’t use social media to share my life. When I was a teen, the social media sphere of this planet had just started to expand. I didn’t feel the need to share everything. It was more about hiding stuff about your life than exposing it. But now I do wonder sometimes if this new generation is happier. They should feel interconnected and not alone like I do, shouldn’t they? Are they overwhelmed by constant comparison or are they motivated, enthralled? Is this something that keeps them feeling excited about their own life? I post some photos of me and my “adventures” every now and then to notify people that may know me or remember me that I am still alive. Somehow it reminds me too.
It appears that someone apart from your relatives should think that your life matters for you to feel that it does. I hate talking about feelings. I think it’s our mind’s way of tricking us into doing stuff that we once liked in an attempt to get a new dopamine hit. My mom once told me that she stopped talking to an acquaintance because she felt there was “something wrong” and “sinister” about him. Since I knew the guy as being super kind and helpful that seemed like a strange and cowardly way of hiding the blunt “I don’t like him” or “he offended me” behind these vague “feelings” that she allowed to steer her in her future behavior.
So how many people should think that your life matters before you can exhale and go on with your life without cringing and asking yourself to justify your existence? 20, 1000, 100k? Some should know that for sure now. Like inventors, famous actors, exceptional businessmen, artists? Do you think that being an Instagram artist makes your life worth it? Would you think that if your work were hung in a gallery on 5th Avenue your life would be worth living? Do people like Elon Musk ask themselves if their lives matter? I mean clearly it does, ‘cause you know about him, right?
Some people stop asking those questions when they find themselves through religion. I once believed in God. Not like the creator of the universe and the all-powerful mind that thought up all the physics and chemistry laws (I think I still believe in this kind of god), but in the knowing-everything and caring-in-spite-of-everything God. I didn’t have a choice then. I was a teen under the “undue influence” of my lonely fanatic aunt who was scared to go to hell. Sometimes I would lie in bed and hold the hand of my little sister and pray with all my might that she wouldn’t go to hell (‘cause she should have since she wasn’t believing). I would imagine all the horrors and I would try to imagine how long “indefinitely” was and I would see the face of the devil in the split second between being awake and falling asleep. Then I would go to church and sing with happy people around me and I wouldn’t be scared anymore and it was a personal high. Is that what makes it so addictive? The relief from the fear of dying? I’ve read that volunteering helps. I bet you get a dopamine rush when another being is more helpless than you and depends on you and is grateful to you. I bet it fires all the right pistons in your brain. I need to try that. I like feeling high.
If you were the last person on Earth, would your life matter? Clearly, you couldn’t make anything useful to others, you couldn’t be praised or followed, you couldn’t help anyone. Would your life matter? You wouldn’t be able to make any meaningful, long-lasting change. No one would remember you. How would you spend your time? Some people would probably come up with some “purpose”, like conquering all the highest mountains or learning how to paint like a god. But I would probably watch all the Netflix available and read all the cheap romance novels while eating potato chips.
Does your life matter if it matters to you? Is that enough? What if it doesn’t? What if it isn’t? I don’t know. Do you?
àäðåñ: https://www.poetryclub.com.ua/getpoem.php?id=924024
ðóáðèêà: Ïðîçà, Ëèðèêà ëþáâè
äàòà ïîñòóïëåíèÿ 03.09.2021