Vlad Pogorelov: September 2023

Mosquitoes,
Cockroaches, and
Spiders
My lovely roommates
and my only true friends
I love you
I love you
I love you
In a sick kind of love
Which will make an executioner happy
And the victim will suffer no more
Only pleasure from the torture
And the pain has no right to exist

And some time my eyes are
Staring at you: big, lonely spider
You are sitting in the darkest corner
Of your dusty net
Waiting for me to get in

And I know for sure
That a giant mosquito
Made his home
Inside my swollen heart
There is plenty of blood
Inside those chambers

And when I can't hear you clearly,
When you are talking to me on the phone
I feel that a cockroach is moving
Inside of my ear

And sometimes I feel
That there is nothing to feel anymore
Ever since my soul was amputated
And smuggled to India
By a gynecologist
Who was seeing my mother
Long time ago, before I was born

So,
Mosquitoes,
Cockroaches,
and Spiders,
You are my only friends,
Who are sharing my soulless fate,
Abandoned by lovers,
Forgotten by long-time friends,
Forsaken by my motherland and the ancient gods
I am living a sheltered life
As a derelict

And it seems like it's time
To jump into the water of a substance,
Which looks like a residential street
Or a boiling sea
Depends on the point of view
Or the angle of the mind
Or just walk out the door
And swim to the store...
Buy some cheap liquor...
Go back home...
To this slow SINKING ship
And to share my fate
With my only true friends
With my only true love
With mosquitoes,
     cockroaches,
     and spiders
'Cause I am a derelict
And I am living a sheltered life

c. Vladlen Pogorelov 1997-2023