It has years to stand before we meet,
I have miles to go before I sleep.
The reality is crawling down my walls
Like the hot wax from opium-scented candle.
On a good day, with bright sunlight,
I can peel some of its burnt skin off.
Seems that someone had made a huge and ugly
Picture of the rotten world and stuck it
To my window from outside long ago.
The colors faded away, the time does not forget
About any of us and anything around.
The tree for my coffin was planted
Long before I was born, should be big by now.
Everything I love will eventually turn
To trash that my kids will get rid of,
As soon as I meet that mighty tree meant for me,
The tree I was promised to for eternity.
Today looks like at least the hundredth
Groundhog Day I was meshed in and mashed in.
Winter turned the city into bare skeleton
Chilled to the back bones of skyscrapers.
The first snow this year was late, in mid-February.
I watched it from my bedroom window.
It was too cold to go outside or even out
Of the room or bed. I hope my tree was not cold,
Wherever it was or still is. I hope that it is
Never alone. I hope it is still in the woods,
Waiting for us to dance, standing firm and sound.
Author Bio:
Yuliia Vereta is a young writer from Ukraine, who is creating essays, fiction, and poetry that comforts the disturbed and disturbs the comforted. Currently lives and works in China. Holds the Master of Arts in Translation. The majority of her works reveal sharp social issues, moral crimes, and emotional struggle.
Her other works were published in 2019 in Salmon Creek Literary Journal, Penultimate Peanut Magazine and Litro Magazine. She received the 2018 City of Rockingham Short Story Award for short fiction and became the finalist in 2019 Poetry Matters Project as well as 2019 Hessler Poetry Contest.
I have miles to go before I sleep.
The reality is crawling down my walls
Like the hot wax from opium-scented candle.
On a good day, with bright sunlight,
I can peel some of its burnt skin off.
Seems that someone had made a huge and ugly
Picture of the rotten world and stuck it
To my window from outside long ago.
The colors faded away, the time does not forget
About any of us and anything around.
The tree for my coffin was planted
Long before I was born, should be big by now.
Everything I love will eventually turn
To trash that my kids will get rid of,
As soon as I meet that mighty tree meant for me,
The tree I was promised to for eternity.
Today looks like at least the hundredth
Groundhog Day I was meshed in and mashed in.
Winter turned the city into bare skeleton
Chilled to the back bones of skyscrapers.
The first snow this year was late, in mid-February.
I watched it from my bedroom window.
It was too cold to go outside or even out
Of the room or bed. I hope my tree was not cold,
Wherever it was or still is. I hope that it is
Never alone. I hope it is still in the woods,
Waiting for us to dance, standing firm and sound.
Author Bio:
Yuliia Vereta is a young writer from Ukraine, who is creating essays, fiction, and poetry that comforts the disturbed and disturbs the comforted. Currently lives and works in China. Holds the Master of Arts in Translation. The majority of her works reveal sharp social issues, moral crimes, and emotional struggle.
Her other works were published in 2019 in Salmon Creek Literary Journal, Penultimate Peanut Magazine and Litro Magazine. She received the 2018 City of Rockingham Short Story Award for short fiction and became the finalist in 2019 Poetry Matters Project as well as 2019 Hessler Poetry Contest.
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