​Poems by Olena Stepanenko (Prylutska) 

 
*
to come to life at 4 am in someone else’s bed
on someone else’s linen
in someone else’s walls
realizing
that even this body is not yours
I don’t know it
 
to look at it in the mirror
stretching cheeks, rising eyebrows --
seems like familiar features
breathe deeper
it’s all right
to carefully examine familiar fillings in teeth
swollen eyelids — but no!
that’s not me
someone is watching every move
from the frosty desert of scorched pupils --
come on, you stranger, miss!
and I’m missing
now it’s forever
 
now it’s forever --
to put on the body
as if it is someone else’s coat
soaked with the smell of bonfires
      cigarettes
and dead bodies
to rub it and wash it
with furious hatred
     
to weep and keep asking
please
take this away from me…
 
give me back my body!
give me back MY life!
 
tell me her name
whom I weep for every day
every night
and can never stop
 
Translated from Ukrainian by Tanya Rodionova
​
First published on Chytomo.com

​Olena Stepanenko (Prylutska) is a poet, translator and journalist. She is the author of four poetry collections. She is the winner of the International poetry competitions "Smoloskyp" and "Granoslov". From 2010 to March 2022 she lived and worked in Bucha. Her poems have been translated into Polish, English, French, Czech, Belarusian and Montenegrin.

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