Olga's Poetry & Thoughts

If I told you all my secrets The ones resting deep in the crevices of the things That I’d like to forget I wonder, would you still look at me the way you do? With love and innocence in your eyes You wish you could hold on to me, grow on me Like moss does on smooth rocks So that we become one, a habitat And we can’t live without each other But if I told you all my secrets Would you still want to be so entwined with me? Or would you swim far, far away To be with fish that have less baggage in the sea Picture: https://fineartamerica.com/art/paintings/fish

They all want to takes pieces of me The bank won’t leave me be Neighbours won’t let me breathe Landladies calling me A fragment here, a small piece there To bosses, friends, and lovers To my pet and to my mother They all want pieces of me There’s not enough to go ‘round I hide in solace ‘til I’m found By exes, hexes, unanswered texts Cold calls, UPS guys, insurance guys Never knew it could hurt so much to cry Skeleton’s trembling and I don’t know why No more pieces to go ‘round No more of me to be shared I can barely cure my own heartache Can take the maximum I could take They say God never gives you more than you can bear But God never answered any of my prayers Fragments of me lining the street Pieces of my life on the wall, on the sheets Leaving a trail behind me as I embark On this new journey into the dark They all want to take pieces of me All I ever wanted was to be ...

Sometimes life really throws you in the deep end. No floaties, no swimming instructor by your side. No wading in the shallow end before moving on to the diving board. Sometimes life just pushes you in head first and you're 18 feet deep before you can even open your eyes. Perhaps this is when we learn the most- when everything hits us all at once. A beautiful catastrophe, a cavalcade of explosions, tears, laughter, happiness, loneliness; all of the contradictions and antonyms converging. Just a few months ago I felt like I became an adult, and now I am alone. So alone. There's help from friends, colleagues, and family, of course, but now I feel as most of us do. Like on an endless pursuit for money and happiness, not really knowing where to find either, and never feeling like we have enough. Adulthood is loneliness. As the strike nears a fifth cold and bitter week, and as I hopelessly scramble to find an apartment to move into before the Christmas season, it is only my inner a...

Sometimes I forget where I am, where we are Like Alice, in my body, I feel much too bizarre I swear and I argue and I use love as a crutch I'm shallow and hollow and I drink way too much Scrape the surface of the thin icy shell Teeth chatter a little as your hands start to swell Maybe you'll see me, just maybe you might Catch a mere glimpse of me in the sunlight You might warm me up, you might melt me down But I'm much too terrified to witness you drown So I clog up my arteries with all the pain And I pretend that I'm foolish and vain It's so much easier to pretend to be free Much better to be... a girl who's not me I take three steps forward, and then four steps back Moving so slowly through the tunnels so black Moving like molasses through a world so obscure Hating myself and then finding a cure Loving myself and then biting my tail It goes in circles to no avail Sometimes I forget where I am, where we are All I know is...

Like an alchemist, She had the power To change things From mundane to Beautiful; from a Serpent into a Dove; from a daisy Into a bouquet From a stone brick Into a diamond She had the power Of witchcraft and She loved the way She could use men As puppets and Women as bait Worms on a hook Pierced through the Heart. Little did she Know that a worm Has eight hearts And the men had None She loved love But was never  In love; except  with  Herself; she ate Hearts for breakfast; Legs for dessert; Like an alchemist, She changed things From ordinary To the otherworldly; Spending days And nights in the  Cold cellar where she  Worked; turning shame Into gold medallions; Morphing pain into Sterling; changing Lust into love, Selling it in batches To the men  And the women So desperate for Someone to  Hold Im...

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

I am obsessed with life, and with finding the meaning of it all. This is why I adore poetry and literature. Certain philosophical quotes stick in my psyche and I can fish them out whenever I feel like I am drowning in my uncertainties. It is also why I love music. Certain songs, lyrics, instruments, and even sounds whisk me back to different places, different people and times in my life. Anytime I want to escape the present, I can turn on the stereo. But poetry, philosophy and music are not the meaning of life. It is just an interpretation. In fact, the older I get foggier the meaning of life becomes. When I was little, I had no critical thinking skills. Most kids do not. We swallow up everything we are told by the authorities towering over us (teachers, parents) like candies. The first time I learned about "heaven" was in the fifth grade, in Catholic School. My teacher taught religion class every afternoon, and we discussed what happens when we die: we go to the pearly gat...

I am so tired of seeing the same person in the mirror every day Roof over my head? Check. Water and food? Check. Family? Check. Healthy? Check. Stable boyfriend? Check. Check. Check. Check. Why does it not seem like enough... It is because I am an angsty twenty-something See, we were raised during an interesting time when flip phones were a luxury in the eighth grade And MSN Messenger was the way to communicate Now, do people even communicate? There was a time when jobs were a tad easier to find Now we sit in a lukewarm pool of our depression and sulk over the youth unemployment rate We believe in nothing, no god to save us, no future for the earth's creatures and plants We just wait for the sun to devour our planet and for the oceans to flood all the major cities like it does in the movies, a modern day tale of Noah We are pessimists, us twenty-somethings What do we believe in? We don't believe in love Love is oppression! Love does not comply with our overly...

Hooray. I graduated from the notoriously soul-sucking, snobbish, yet also beautiful and prestigious establishment that is the University of Toronto. When asked, "what have you learned in your four years?" nothing remotely related to academia comes to mind. I could say that I learned about wacky political philosophers and their undying sexist theories. I could tell you that I acquired "critical thinking skills," improved my writing and grammar, and can now read a Victorian novel in one day without a problem. But the things that I was taught in my classes are not the things that have stuck with me the most. All my various experiences of growing up and "discovering myself" in the maze of U of T can be summed up in one lesson: Sometimes, the things that are good for you don't feel good, and the things that feel great are leading you down the wrong path. This is an elementary lesson that we learn as four-year-olds. "Eat your broccoli, Susan! Even i...

The present is all that exists The candle does not rise as it burns It collapses onto itself The bird does not stop singing because, two weeks ago, it got its feelings hurt It sings now because this morning is all that exists History has brought us monuments, Mozart, and star-cross'd lovers Which haunt and awe us today, but cease to exist in tact They are just relics Like an empty wine glass with lipstick stains Or crumpled petals and flower remains Like old movie tickets hidden in a drawer Or a stolen sweater that smells like cologne Yet the present is all that is real That is tangible, that is whole The heart beat, the hum of the fridge, mango hair spray An itch in the neck, a twitch of the nose, a cat's meow Is all of reality Mundane and sublime The aged fruit of old time Rotten berries on the window sill will keep on rotting Good old pals will continue being forgotten The past should not be disturbed The birds, the squirrels, the r...

Here is a thing that you may not know about me. I hate my face. And not in a casual sort of way that is modest and attention-seeking. The self-hate for my face is real. Amid all my insecurities, from some of my unpleasant personality traits to my guilt of not working out enough (whoops!), my face, unfortunately (and quite shallowly) takes first place. Perhaps writing down this insecurity, taming it, and confining it to a series of paragraphs will help me see how senseless it is to fret so much about something, that, frankly, is irrelevant to my worth as a person, and how my obsessive insecurity might, ironically, make me a more irritable and spiteful person instead. Ever since the age of twelve, I have had acne. You know, the usual teenager "T-zone" acne on the forehead, cheeks, chin, and occasional nose and neck. Except maybe a tad worse than the "usual." That means, for the past nine years of my life, I have woken up every single day being self-conscious. I don...