Notes of a Flower Boy

1. I still don’t know the language of love

Every girl has my father’s face.

 

2. On a summer train ride from Kazan to Volgograd

I leave the radio talking to itself at home

There are roughly 1,137 silences

I fill my mother gently into every silence.

 

3. My body is so tiny it takes the shape of anything it is poured into

Once I poured it in a vodka bottle and it fitted perfectly

But a church constantly spits me out, always cursing that I will never be enough.

 

4. I once had a nightmare where I was happy

Died with a wide smile on my face

I was either swallowed whole or euthanasia

 

5. Мне в России всегда грустно[1]

Everything is somehow bland

and in winter solitude builds an igloo in my heart.

 

6. Her hair was everywhere and it smelled of coconut oil

The first time we kissed, flowers sprouted in my diastema

She called them ixoras, I don’t remember her name.

 

7. I hope I am never ready to be a man

I just want to get a nose ring and be a flower boy

Sitting down on the edge of boyhood all my life.

 

8. Perhaps it was some kind of Abrahamic love

I once tried to sacrifice myself.

I wanted to please a lover by setting the world on fire

So I used my body as fuel.

[1] Мне в России всегда грустно – In Russia I’m always sad