Self-Sufficiency

Moth and salt, this is what my old boots have become.

Such is the price of my memories.

And beyond the boots there’s a road, but the road is like wings, wherever it flaps, there it dissolves.

And beyond the boots there are people, but they are like salt, they stung my wounds and drained away like water.

Now I’m a sluggish moth dreaming about balance

or maybe hardening salt yearning for eternal life?

Stinging salt, like a moth, left holes and loneliness behind.

I only remember coming here in these boots,

but I don’t remember leaving everybody behind.

Self-sufficiency has always been my ultimate self-goal,

but concealing the stinging trickery of aloofness.

Translated by Natasha Avtonomova

2017