Dominika Visy

Foraging

​

We pick each other

Like random mushrooms,

Not asking, just hoping.

Will you kill me? 

Will you nourish?

 

We hide the unhideable,

We say the unsayable.

We build sandcastles

Before the tide arrives.

We destroy each other, brick by brick,

To construct walls in the wrong places.

 

We teach, we cheat,

We learn, we yearn.

We lie arm in arm, and still alone.

Today follows today, tomorrow disappeared.

​

Then one day we are less beloved than an enemy,

More indifferent than a stranger.

​

Song of the Misfits

​

Inside me lives the man who hated himself,

Though he was a genius, and beautiful beyond compare.

Inside me lives the woman who wanted to belong,

Though far sharper, brighter, gentler than most.

​

Around me float the unworthiest,

Ballooning egos and substance but a grain of sand.

Around me fall the best of the best,

Those most deserving of blessing so oft cursed till death.

​

Far behind me is my childhood, a two-page fairy tale.

Always ahead, and never behind,

The robbed teenage years.

No sticks, no stones. Just words.

Hammers that never took a rest.

And now I'm ungrounded, my soul ground to dust.

​

Always on my lips is the question Why.

What sin awakened such merciless hate?

Had you hit me, I would have screamed,

But one day I would have healed.

You beat me with words you thought weightless,

But a decade on I still shrug under their weight

And carry incurable wounds on my heart

As I stumble in this labyrinth

And pretend I'm not broken at all.

I linger in limbo-state,

Half hopeful and life-desiring,

Half lifeless inside,

And weary of the pain.

​

Black days pass, all fake smiles, fake interest,

Then black nights come,

Mourning the long-gone joy, and worse,

The what ifs, the other scenarios,

The life of the girl who could belong, 

The child who grew up whole.

​

Day, night, summer, winter,

I wonder if I'm too far away,

Too long gone, beyond repair,

I wonder if a good decade could redeem these tortuous years.

​

I don't know anymore.

All I know is that bullying is a crime. 

Bullying is manslaughter.

Mother, tell your children

To be the defenders of the human soul,

This brittle, inestimable, irreplaceable treasure.

​

Kids

​

Kid I am, your kid. I know nothing. Teach me, I have much to learn.

 

Kid you are, my kid. You know too much. You must unlearn life.

 

Hide me in your arms tonight, and read me a newspaper full of lies. Happy lies.

 

Then I'll hide you in my arms, and write you a fairy tale full of lies. Happy lies.

 

You will have one more brother who looks just like you, and I will have a sister who looks just like me. 

 

And they will be together, just like us. And they will be happy, unlike us.

 

Then I'll kiss your wrinkles and count your white hairs. How many more will I give you! How many will you give me! And how many would it give me to give you up!

 

Then we will dream velvet dreams,

Arm in arm, heart against heart.

Today has ended,

Today starts again.

There is no tomorrow.

​

I'm afraid, darling, you are dating a poet, not an accountant.

​

Another Man Goes

​

Another man goes,
Another day grows into a mountain.
Another dream goes down the shredder
Another mascara-black question mark dries on my face.

Another night is harvested,
Pressed, and decanted into inkpots.
Another ghost feasts his coronation
And a poet is demoted to a clown.

​

Le rendez-vous d'une poétesse

​

I watch you as you sit over your beer

And monologise about your new mattress.

I watch you, but I do not listen.

I think.

​

Yesterday I visited Whitman's America

And Rimbaud's France

And now you'd drag me to Ikea!

​

You want to possess a poet

Who dwells in myriad lands

And wears a new mask every day.

But if you dive no deeper than the bottom of your pint glass

How do you want to hold her?

​

Oh pitiable lot of a poet!

The men who understand

Are not interested.

The men who are interested

- Do not understand!

​

Stocktake

​

Why does emptiness feel so heavy?

Why does silence sound so loud?

Why is the world so big if there's nowhere to hide?

Why is the night so tenacious?

Why is daylight so fickle?

How far can you run before you realise

That you can't run away from yourself?

​

Two years here, and the land is still strange

Two years here, and nothing ascertained.

Once again I convince myself

The only way is somewhere else

Once again I avoid my thoughts

Before I condemn myself to death.

I walk on the streets

Once beloved, now too familiar

And the word 'home' sits rusty on my tongue

Like corked wine

Like clotting blood

Like the salty aftertaste of tears.

​

I'm still fool enough  to believe

I belong somewhere.

Not here, but somewhere.

Somewhere.

My life's purpose is the quest

To find this nonexistent place.

But home is not a set of coordinates

Or a pin on a map. 

Home can be everywhere

If someone waits for you there.

And home is nowhere for the anchorless,

The lonely, the unloved.

We bounce, we drift, we float.

We survive, but we are not alive.

Perpetual strangers,

Always outside.

​

Berlin - Character Summary

​

Berlin is beautiful (on the inside).

Bleak by day, boisterous by night,

A battleground all year round.

Broke, broken, borderline burnt-out.

Bewitching, bewildering, barely bearable.

The bastion of bogus bohemians,

The breeder of blurry, bittersweet dreams.

Berlin bashes you before it blesses you,

And belittles you before it bolsters you.

​