Olga's Poetry & Thoughts

A striped, soft kitten plays with a ball of yarn Its claws digging into the bubblegum pink strands The ball is slowly unspooling Ribbons of chaos all over the living room It just takes one tug, the right way With the claw at just the right angle To undo a tight, solid material A ball of dense yarn Which is strong enough to create a sweater For cold winter nights Or a blanket to cozy up under But even the most impenetrable and versatile Of us is doomed to fall apart When a ruthless predator Prods us just so

Looking out the window, I see peoples' lives In tiny lit boxes, apartments in the sky Everyone surrounded by four white walls Walls which have no emotions at all Walls which have kept us so disconnected Not a single soul has not been affected By the loneliness, the frustration The tech divide of our generation I see people on the platform, eyes on their phone Crushing candies, texting their partners back home What if we stopped and decided to be here? To be present and sober, mind in the clear? To be rid of the walls and free of the screens To remember what true happiness means The people living in apartments in the sky That is all of us, that's you and I What's the meaning of it all? Are we alone? We won't find the answers to that on our phone Google can't tell you if you've found the one You can't game away your anxiety none You can't binge watch your emotions away Sooner or later, you'll have to pay To leave the walls, to take a risk To see all th...

As crimson skies do turn to grey So young trees rattle and decay What once was golden is now bronze Once full of pros, now smeared with cons An apple, forgotten, growing old On the table, ripe with mold It was juicy just yesterday But now it's foreign as a stray As heavy hearts do hollow out So does the aching sense of doubt Once a lovely carefree spree Now, dead, crucified on the tree An apple, forgotten, painful, lonely A single apple, but it's not the only

A few years ago, during the penultimate semester in my university career, a tragedy struck my classmates and me. While much time has passed, my thoughts often drift back to this time, and I wonder why it had affected me so much. In my fourth year of university, I was still under the foolish impression that I would graduate to be a top-of-the-line lawyer, a legal advocate for women's rights, a leader in the profession. It was a career path that I quickly learned was not right for me at all, but at the time, I thought it was my destiny. Hence, I took a non-mandatory tort and contract law class on Tuesdays from 6 to 8:45 pm. My professor, let's just call him Mr. F, was a loud, energetic presence in the room. He would pace around the front of the room, scribbling things on the board here and there, and using a handkerchief to mop the sweat off his brow every fifteen minutes or so. He was clearly very passionate about his career in law. The one case he taught us that struck out ...

               I drummed my fingers on the receptionist ’s desk in unease. There was a chemical smell all around me, seeping into my skin. A small brown dog was barking behind me, its owner looking defeated, repeating, “Stop it, Biscuit! Get down!”                “That will be $245.65. How would you like to pay?” the receptionist asked.                I paid the full amount by credit card. I would worry about how I would afford the mounting vet bills later. I looked at my small black cat, Mika, whom I’ve known since I was thirteen years old. She looked up at me innocently with her eerie and beautiful yellow eyes.                “It’s okay, Mika” I petted her and she purred, the tip of her pink tongue lolling out of her lips...

It's weird seeing somebody Somebody you no longer know That you recognize vaguely From the silhouettes in your dreams It's like seeing an alien From another planet, a world That has gone extinct I mourn these fossils I've collected Over the years, one friend here Another there, a soulmate lost From seeing each other everyday To having coffee once a month To catching up once a year Until I become a sad afterthought A rare cameo in your dreams A blot on your subconscious But nothing more It's weird seeing somebody Somebody that mattered The twisted vines of our lives Grew separately, each reaching Towards a different sun Now I no longer matter to you And so you don't matter to me You might as well be dark matter I mourn all friends I've lost All love I've let slip through My fingers like sand Another year has begun I have to bury the fossils Dig them up every few years Just to remember my past And then cover them in sand once m...

I wish we could be Under the sea Just you and me ‘Cause I turn to foam When I’m all alone I wash up ashore In seaweed and gore I want to roll in the sand I want to dance on the land But it’s not meant to be Not you and me Salt water makes you cry Deserts make me dry You’re too far away So alone I will lay Image: https://www.saatchiart.com/art/Painting-Girl-at-the-beach/726154/3734677/view

The rat race, it’s called In college it’s a plague All the rats gnawing at each other’s tails Trying to reach for the top They don’t sleep, they don’t stop Cause now it’s cool to be exhausted To boast the battle scars on our brains “Here is where I pulled 3 all nighters for an exam” “This mark here is where I failed and then cried” “There is where I went to Starbuck’s 10 times in one day and I still couldn’t get that homework done” Why are they proud of this? I’ll never know What drives the rats to mind pumping drugs But they don’t make you smarter, they Just make you dizzy and robotic and dazed The little pills make you feel less lazy So instead of going for a walk, or to church, or reading a book You can sit on your chair and digest information for days Swallow it whole, all the books, the LSATs Until you’re numbed by the excess of dictations You’re more like Google and less like a person A siphon f...

Everything's cyclical, circular, round All you don't know has already been found In school you learn the life cycle of a frog One day you're a tadpole and the next you just slog Slog from one building into another Crawl from childhood to being a mother Drive in endless circles around one block Scared to go home, be alone, no door knocks Scared to eat the same meal without a prayer The same meal you'd request at the electric chair Scared to go back to the same circular life To be in the same room with the same old wife In circles, to sleep, wake up, and complain In circles, there is frost, and then there is rain We have 50 more cycles of summers to go 50 more times for the front lawn to mow 50 more cycles of seasons to pass 'Til we end up buried beneath the grass Nothing scares me more in this circular drone Than walking all these long circles alone http://thefineartdiner.blogspot.ca/2012/01/christinas-world-our-world.html -->

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 ...

In the end, it's all the same Every French kiss in the rain Every hand you'll ever hold Even when your heart is cold Every inch of skin you've felt Every sweet cologne you've smelt Every look's that made you melt Is made on a conveyor belt It's part of the same sorrow plan It's how God has punished man To make love like ecstasy To make you dismiss reality And to fall into a helpless trance Of laughter, chocolate, and romance You play with fire and you dance You know the odds, but take a chance In the end, it's all the same All the bliss and all the pain All the kisses taste so sweet We search until we feel complete Image source: https://falacarte.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/kiss-under-spring-rain.jpg

Life Goes on and on and on Even when the magic's gone With the redness of the dawn Life tells us to just get on Even when the sun has set Even when your cheeks are wet Dream of the loved ones you forget Until you wake up in a sweat Even then, when all is grey When God has ditched you for the day When autumn comes and leaves decay When you feel hopeless and you pray To a sad statue made of clay Even when you fly away Life gives you yet another day Life gives you more than you can bear More thorns and weights for you to wear You go on to the next affair To the women with golden hair That leave you hollow in despair But life goes on and gives no care Life goes on and on and on One day, my duck, you'll be a swan One day you will sleep half past dawn We all will wonder where you've gone But life will still go on and on Image source: https://www.saatchiart.com/art/Painting-Color-of-dawn-oil-painting-by-Dmitry-Sp...

What is a father? Who is our father? Our Father, capital F, who art in heaven, Our father, who's watching the game on TV, Our dad, to go on camping trips with, Roasting marshmallows at dusk Our daddy, a strong neck to hold on to When we are too weak to walk Our papa, the second face we register When we are born onto the earth Our pa, pop, Old Man, tata, head of the house A man, a person, a being with graces and faults Pa, a cluster of memories Of popsicles on the way home from school When mom wouldn't allow it Of walks to the park and the playground Of being taught how to ride a bicycle Then pa morphed to dad, and then to father Our Father, distant, almost unaware of his existence Father, to be prayed to, to be worshipped A father who is not a dad at all What is a father? Who is our father? A man who loves us unconditionally A man who sets an example for future generations A man, surrounded by family, in a warm home A man who is honoured because he deser...

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...