Yoana Tosheva
Image by Leticia Higa on Pexels
Yoana Tosheva is a student, an immigrant, and an artist. Her work has been published in Diminuendo, Wack Mag, Anser Journal, Sixty Inches From Center, Trampoline, Red Fez and elsewhere. She runs a blog about music which you may peruse at https://collectivecadence.home.blog/. Her visual art can be found on Instagram @yoana_art.
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Dreaming, Leaving (Continuous Acts)
Dreaming, Leaving (Continuous Acts)
Last night I dreamt a different poem in the mother tongue
It was backwards and upside down like the sky was solid surface and
Someone thought the weeds were flowers, which was also a mercy.
Back home the river is always a stream because the summer heat
But I know it exists full and gurgling and fraught with threats,
I know because I dreamt it was a bubbling green that
Swallowed me down the current so I would never leave.
And then I left.
Sometimes I get upset that my bruises go away,
Sometimes I want to keep them on display, my accolades.
Pain is the only reminder that actually works, didn’t you know
They’ve never been able to successfully keep a great white shark in
Captivity. They slam themselves against the glass cages because
They’d rather die. This is very important to me
Try to remember what color your hair was in the dream, your eyes.
Sometimes I wake up and there is so much dirt on the roof of my mouth
I was digging a grave below my tongue, I remember.
There were two languages there but only one would be buried
Without a shadow of a doubt.
The day we leave is always the same day and the shadows are
Always long, like tendrils to wrap me up into staying.
They should know by now I want to but cannot.
I think of the great whites, in their cages for mere days,
I think of my cage, which is also coincidentally my body –
Everything feels impossible.
