my name is Yevah,

i write stories.

i breathe in fast phrases and feelings that force their way into my face,

silences stretching out and out and out

laughter on a scale from a chuckle to hysterical

pain on a scale from numb to throbbing to agony

recollections that strike whenever you least expect it

premonitions that worry me during sleepless nights.

i breathe in all of that in and spew out sickly syllables,

wicked words, artless allegories, masterless metaphors --

i am a nation of people trying to find the promised land after years and years and years of journey

but something tells me that to find it is as much of a mirage as the ones I look for in the desert.

but i love,

i love my words.

love is passion and passion is passionately smashing everything between you and your passion,

and when i crash i will do it loudly, brashly, with a sound BAM,

thrashing all that i am, leaving behind just ash.

my mind’s a clash between the rational and the passionate, telling me what actions to take, i don’t listen -

i love,

i love people.

i love them so much that it hurts,

my love is a fire i can’t fight, lighting up my skin, burning my flesh,

reducing my bones to ash with my fire.

the fire takes pleasure and pride in its fight, killing me slowly, organ by organ,

the brain goes first, my lungs, my gut, my liver...

it’s the heart that stays, burning bright with the light, fighting the fire, beating through it all,

and when it seems like the fire is fighting less and there’s an end to the burning bright,

i see your smile, and the fire lights up, again.

still i love,

i love my culture and i hate it just as much,

my country, dragging along in pain, pain, pain, collapsing under the strain,

stained by oppression and slain by the media who craves the brains,

cuts deeper and deeper into the vein until there is nothing left but pain, pain, pain.

my love is in vain, and i still cannot escape the chains of russia, its cries and moans etched into my brain

because it can’t contain all of the pain.

yet i love

i love myself and i loathe myself

i loathe my clothes, my pose, i throw me out for all of the crows and foes

i separate my qualities into neat rows and take in the daily dose of both self-deprecation and self-love.

i don’t have much --

i don’t have a pretty face or a pretty voice or a pretty little body that would make heads turn,

i don’t have a talent in anything that i love,

all i have is

love

and love is passion and passion is an irrational crash that won’t stop and you don’t want it to stop

because you’re crashing and you’re smashing and your actions are brash and your phrases are lashing

and what comes out is the passion.

my name is Yevah and i stand by it.