Olga's Poetry & Thoughts

I woke up, again, with sweat drenching my back, gluing my night shirt close to my body. I had a nightmare, the same one I've had many a time: in the dream, I am sleeping in my bed, but when I look down to my toes, I can't see them, because I have a very bulging, very pregnant stomach. I gasp for air, panic, cry. Then I wake up. I'm not from another era- I know perfectly well how to avoid unexpected pregnancies. Yet this is a fear that has burrowed into my psyche and which springs up when my body is trying to rest. Perhaps the fear is not the pregnancy itself- it is the fear that I will never want a child. It is the fear of...babies. While other women my age already have this maternal instinct, a drive to squish chubby cheeks and fantasize about cribs, I am ambivalent about babies. I can't fathom what drives a woman to momentarily give up her body, to sacrifice a portion of her career, and to devote her life to a crying blob without a formed personality, without hopes or

I thought I was a rose, full bloom But I'm a budding cherry blossom So many days and dusks ahead So many raindrops to consume Until my petals drop It is a seasonal beauty A spectacle, in awe My whole life is but a season Of infinite springtimes on this earth Look at the cherry blossoms They taunt you with their delicate pink skin You want to grasp it, want to own it But they flutter in the wind So few days and dusks ahead So few raindrops to consume So few times to look to the sky And marvel at the moon Perhaps we have fifty more springtimes to see Fifty more cherry blossoms Fifty more times to eat birthday cake Fifty more times 'til we go with the blossoms The earth is infinite, but we are finite Love is immortal, but we are mortal The cherry blossoms will still stand Even when we're not budding anymore