Novels of youth

By Sofya Vidyapina

I'd like to thaw in the novels of my past.
Palm full of almonds after a fast.
Early mornings, stepping into fog.
Books, rings, silence, all around my thick smog.

Get the second seat in the back.
There, no one will bother you, clad you are all in black.
Read your book, don't look up, stay downcast.
Staring at murky cold scenery stretching forever right past.

Mind still young, learning, surviving, not thriving. 
That clarity is covered in sheets of conniving, childish lust.
Walking past, watching a man fall through temptation.
He sees me, he cannot comprehend the extent which I grasp.

Ice, cold mornings are so close at hand.
Feeling the weight of the world at 9.
Now I'm 20, soon to be 20 and 1,
Looking back to that space, filled with a sorrowful hum.

Somehow I'm still eager in wanting to be there.
Rebirthed, forced to change, without hope, or a single word of a prayer. 
Quiet, aware, for once, of the first autumn morning.
Not mourning, but frozen, with no way to fathom or grasp.

Time has passed, so fast and so seamlessly empty.
The truth is now hefty, and stuck to the pages I turn.
Still sitting and waiting, alone on that corner,
With a kiss and a book in my other palm.
 

This Fleeting Ideation

By Sofya Vidyapina

I'd like to dissolve in the glare of this morning.
Soft breeze of a breath escaping, and blowing.
This need for a spirit to hold is engaging,
Quiet temper alluring, and so fascinating.

How can you persist after leaving this vision?
Writing poems, and dreaming about perfect strangers, 
Idealizing grime, and obscene illustrations,
Of those times, the days we lost sulking and looking for dangers.

Cold eyed youth, those sights are still near and haunting,
Remember it whole, put down those gifts of lurid provocation. 
You came all this way, I know, it was daunting.
To give you a chance for a rest is exalting. 

Assuming an air of knowing and pride,
It's passed, I'm removed from that lucid temptation. 
Methodically, studying, weighing those lies,
The ones that were whispered by death in disguise. 

I wonder, do you? How many will be there,
Enjoyed and forgotten, discarded to sheets, sullied white cotton.
The stories we tell to the flies and the walls, 
Priceless time, spent lusting for those we don't know. 

Rivers flow through those eyes, cloudless, bright summer skies,
Treasured and relished, by many who knew you.
Glad to be one of them, I say that quite truly.
One day all will pass, we will find peace, in the imminent past.

To look back, and to know that this time’s not been wasted.
Refusing the tedious years to come, unclear, impending.
My youth is still potent, I'll stay in this moment,
Until all that’s real and true has been ravished, assaulted. 

Has it passed for you yet? This feverish hunger,
To know and possess all that should stay in slumber.
Naive veneration, for a life full of reckless, absurd, exploration,
Short circuits, blown fuses since birth, now we slip into awful temptation.

I write, and I fight, a need for an unveiling light,
The tunnels, pitch black, only soft water running,
Away from our feet, away from our silent churning.
Soft steps, shadows screaming, can you hear me falling?