Язык запутанный в сорняках

She’s exotic, I can tell. A response to my mom’s Russian
then-boyfriend introducing her as a Ukrainian. You can tell everything about a person, after learning where they’re from. My grandmother has long been Russified. I’m certain you could convince her that Ukrainians are lazy, a touch too tan, and they speak like brutes — that all Ukrainian men have abnormally large cocks. Fascist, savage bastards. My American then-boyfriends could tell everything about me — all that was needed was one simple fact: Russian heritage. My intrinsically melancholic, sex-pot, subservient nature came out of the woodwork of a dacha surrounded by birch trees. Justification precedes violence. Violence is painless, it’s inevitable in the procurement of enlightenment.

If I were exotic, I could write with ease in my not-quite-civilized tongue. The apparent hissing and coarseness of Russian sounds soft as the tips of foxtail grass that brush past my ears. I cannot write at all in Ukrainian. The language got lost somewhere in the shriveled weeds of my mom’s side of the family.

I had a crush on a Ukrainian guy once. We texted in a mix of English and Russian. He called me cute rather than exotic. He said he would never hurt me. I was but a child outside the dacha, running past the birch trees, with hands full of wild strawberries. There is no justification for violence. Violence is never painless.

And I don’t want enlightenment.

Unidentified Metaphor

It didn’t mean a thing, remnants of some imagined humiliation.

I bury my face in a pillow that needs laundering. Try to pull me away from it. I need to remember. To see clearly.
The ditsy calf is not a satisfying meal, its unsteady hooves still twitching, unable to be chewed down like it’s meant to. Imagine smudged polaroids of a runny nosed, flushed, dizzy calf.
Imagine it, the reversal of time, back to a calf. Imagine breathlessness. Try, again, again, again please. I want it without feeling shame wash over like a flood of curdled milk. But you can’t imagine it at all, and I wonder what it’s like. I wonder what’s it’s like.
I’m doing it, doing it again. Gasping for air. Projecting some non-existent weakness.
Take a picture, take a picture now. I want to remember. It’s wrong, it’s wrong, but give me what I shouldn’t have. Teeth and whispers oozing into ready ears, but what if it’s bothersome and the “no” isn’t a game anymore.

You force a grin, you force yourself to take another bite. You force yourself, you force yourself, you force yourself, to fuck me and love me and take care of me. My humiliation,
part of some greater metaphor I can’t think of in the moment. You force yourself. I don’t say “no” to make it clear the game is over.

I don’t want what I think I should want. Not yet, not yet, not yet. Not until the inevitable explosion comes, spoilt milk and ink from old polaroids splattered across the walls.
Pestered with drool trailing down the nape of the neck. It was meant to mask the tears, the snot on the dirty pillowcase.
I forgive, I forgive, but I still remember.
There’s no grace, in this wanting and wanting, then pulling and pulling away. All the possibly pretty polaroids. All the faded images. I’m not allowed to pull back.

My humiliation, metaphors for my humiliation. Polaroids and calves and dirty pillows mean nothing. Love me and fuck me and fuck me and love me and take care of me because I can’t keep the balance on my own two feet, clumsy hooves, whatever, whatever they are.
You can’t eat me and be full. All the plush fat deflates as you start to chew.



Leaving you unsatisfied.



I can’t stand up. I’m not allowed to breathe. I remember it well.

Nat Zhichkin is a poet from New York. She is getting her Bachelor’s degree in sociology this summer and hopes to do her Master’s abroad after. Besides poetry, she loves artsy movies and finding new music to listen to.
She can be found on Instagram @canuxploitation.