Exit Everything (For Everlasting Peace) Poem by Eugenia Dubinova

Pain spoke to me in a vernacular,
showing me familiar faces as a slideshow,
reminding me of all the roads I didn't take,
regretting never making a different turn,
not gazing at the right pair of eyes,
never melting under the hot rain,
never thanking my mother one more time for the best she could do,
with the pain she had already possessed before I could breathe.

It enfolded me like a veil of thin, muddy sand,
which crumbles and creaks in my teeth,
and I try to imagine it's sugar.
I try to find a place to sleep softly, in this veil that contains no warmth.
But even in these circumstances, I want to believe that, at the end of this all-consuming torture,
she will reward me with peace, maybe even love.

This new formula of pain—
different from yesterday's, but underdeveloped to be tomorrow's.
In its nature mutable and imperishable.
A virus that I hope will love me after draining me dry.
Perhaps, in my consciousness, I am no different from a stray dog,
who, once fed, will do anything to feel this kindness again,
in a world where everyone is good at manipulation,
good at knowing how to be kind just once.