Trulyalya

I simply am not there

[maslyatina]

I want to live beneath your skin,

to feel each day your shivers run -

the tremor, laughter, rage within.

I want to weave into your bones,

so you won’t know where you end,

and where my claws have grown.

Or be a drop of water,

trickling down your thighs,

I want to be your home, your anchor,

where all else would fear, but you safe lie.

Your old, faithful, hulking dog,

watching over every night,

warding storms both great and small,

biting at hands and faces tight,

then guilty laying my bloodied snout

across your knees, the storm put out.

I want to be your favorite lines

from your most hated book,

to hold a corner of your heart,

and make you flinch when you look.

I want to be your favorite song,

on endless, looping repeat,

so much that chords and notes spill out,

yet your hand presses play again, complete.

I hate mathematics,

but I, like a mad scientist,

try to solve you like an equation,

to calculate each variable -

and finally understand

that while we fuck like maniacs,

in your hands I feel

that I

actually

matter.

[maslyatina]

and on the second date

from the headphones

came

this is love

for so many years I deleted every song about love —

because of how much pain and humiliation it brought me.

and then there was you —

and everything became about love again,

and my playlist slowly began filling up with feelings.

you are like a plague,

I cough not blood, but you,

and I don’t want any medicine,

I don’t need treatment,

I want to keep coughing

and know that you are inside me.

it feels as if I am leaving behind

not parts,

but my entire heart.

and God only knows why you would want

something so rough, so uneven.

you just smile mysteriously and hum to yourself,

while all I can do is stare at you

and pray that we are more

than one hundred and thirty-two days

and the fear of letting each other touch

those parts of us

that actually matter.

I would want a thousand years for the two of us,

and I would bring you all ten thousand

if only you nodded — truly.

you are the first in a long time

who sees me in me,

not my masks.

so it turns out you love

taking them off and breaking them too?

are we of the same blood?

my heart is yours —

but can you leave something

if it no longer belongs to you?

does my heart belong to me

if your thin fingers gently stroke that muscle,

and all it takes is for you to squeeze them just a little

for me to start curling inward,

wheezing and thrashing like a fish

thrown onto the shore,

mindless and instinctive,

trying to draw a breath —

only you are the air,

and I am suffocating.

you are everywhere,

and for the first time in a long while

I want to see you

and scent you

wherever I go.

perhaps I look solid,

like a rock,

but you give my fragility back to me.

only you know how to handle fragile things.

so do you need my fragile heart?

so will you let me stay inside you

and never leave you?

[maslyatina]

I melt beneath you,

as if you were the sun —

not warmth, but a fever,

not light, but a slow undoing.

Under your touch

my skin turns liquid,

a secret spilling between us

in quiet defiance.

You smile to yourself,

and I fall silent —

no words left sharp enough

to name what you make of me.

It isn’t fear,

it’s knowing

how much I ache to open,

to blur,

to cross every line I’ve drawn.

You make me forget to breathe,

as if my heart stops

only to start again,

in your name.

I stand before your steady gaze,

wiping away my paint,

unclasping the armor —

you never even aim,

and still I surrender.

There’s a mark on my chest,

a place waiting

for your bullet,

long before you ever came.

So please —

if I break,

let it be

in your hands.

[maslyatina]

My words come easy, they flow like a stream,

But wrapping them soft in a tender dream—

That’s hard. Tell me what makes you sigh,

When no one’s watching, what shadows lie?

Or how you curse when your coffee’s spilled,

Morning’s promise so cruelly killed.

I’d be a droplet to slide down your throat,

Or a mint candy’s swirl, in your warmth to float,

Dissolving completely, no trace to retrieve.

I crave to know what thoughts you weave

A minute before the world’s set to break,

When it feels like all will collapse, remake,

And you’ll learn again from the faults you’ve sown,

Stumbling through lessons you’ve always known.

Your eyes are a fortress I can’t breach through,

A danger zone where my fears come true.

Yet I ignore every warning sign,

The symbols etched in your mind’s design.

I’d linger there as your favorite quote,

Or cling like perfume to your hair’s soft note.

I long to read you, to turn every page,

But we’re twin books from a different stage:

You’re life, I’m death; you’re light, I’m sin,

Yet you feel like breath where my lack’s been.

I’ve lived half-lunged, gasping thin,

My other half choked with venom within.

But you hold the cure in your pocket’s keep,

Antidotes ready, their power so deep.

It costs you nothing to tame my fire,

To soften my rage to a gentle desire.

I still struggle to bare my soul’s tender truth,

But you break the molds, make my spirit uncouth.

Your hand flows like rivers through my veins’ core,

And I’m yours, undone, forevermore.

[maslyatina]

I wake at three thirty, my senses alive,

Dusted with snow that the dead left behind.

Slap my cheeks hard till a seer I become,

Blind to the world, yet my visions still hum.

Candles I light in a flickering ring,

Charcoal on palms, strange sigils I bring.

Soot swirls around me, with ash and with grime,

Chanting my spells through the murk of the time.

Talismans woven to fend off the blight,

That sickness that clings to my soul in the night.

I don’t fully trust, yet I dare to believe,

I can banish you, burn you, your shadow reprieve.

As if bridges I’ve torched aren’t a thousand in flame,

While ones like us linger, so rare, yet the same.

My spell I whisper, a circle of salt,

To block your approach, make your footsteps halt.

Yet I’m torn by the pull to draw closer, to see—

Not ruin, but chaos, your wild decree.

But you, you ignore my salt circle’s bind,

Each time I burn you from deep in my mind.

You return, fervent zealot, a pilgrim so true,

As if I’m the icon you’re praying unto.

Not a defiled altar, to gods none would dare,

Whose names bring a shiver, too dreadful to swear.

[maslyatina]

and here i stand at the crossroads again:

to hurl myself like a stone into the sea,

or turn into a raven,

and circle above the volcano’s maw.

i’ll burn, flying over

the fiery throat,

i’ll scream and cackle,

as if finally become myself,

(that is, read my lips)

a raving bitch,

i’ll start sewing my mouth shut

and set to measuring

what equals a walk along your ribs

to the sum of hairs left on the comb

i’ll stand behind your left shoulder.

while you wash your face

i’ll stand and watch your reflection

in the mirror i see myself,

and again i stand at the crossroads:

under the left wing only ash and tears,

under the right -

all that i still didn’t dare then

to pass on to myself.

in a burned envelope

without signature and without address,

there’s not even a letter there,

there my trace and my scent,

there my laugh and deaf courage.

probably, i lied to you after all

your reflection -

the only thing

that brings to the tip of the tongue

a premonition of fear.

[maslyatina]

show me your teeth

show me your teeth,

tell me how you bite through people.

how does it feel to hide your blades

just not to hurt — not to hurt — not to hurt.

you bite at the wrists,

you bite at my lips

as if you’re trying to tear off a piece of me.

you’re not used to someone who shares,

and I’m not used to keeping myself for myself.

bare your teeth —

a grin or a snarl, it doesn’t matter.

beneath the skin spreads that feeling,

the one the dead hunter spoke of:

life never stays the same

after you’ve felt fear

curl around your throat.

truth is, you don’t scare me.

I like to think

that any second

you could sink your fangs into my veins,

and I could leave not a single inch

of your flesh untouched.

I don’t know how to bite —

but I know how to hold.

should I give you all control,

lay down my cards,

or keep a few aces

tucked in my sleeve —

not to wound,

but to throw you off your rhythm,

to watch how your fury

spills in a flood through your iris

and drowns your pupils in light.

show me your fangs,

your lethal ones.

you strike when there’s no room

left to run.

darkness covers you whole —

no hiding, no fleeing,

only surrender.

you love to obey.

and I —

to command.

[maslyatina]

Porn star of mescaline dreams,

You come into my sleep it seems,

In times of great upheaval’s tide,

I watch you flow—a mandala wide,

Acid-wreathed and drawing near,

Filling gaps with shards sincere,

A kaleidoscope of fractured past,

Lives and masks that never last.

You drive your crazy truths like stakes,

And I believe, I dare embrace.

I follow you—a willing trace,

As if you’re

My LSD studio’s only star,

With junk-brand production, yet bizarre,

You’re the only one who knows the place

Where dog’s nose dug illusions’ chase,

And truth was hunted in wild night.

You sell yourself—a rare delight,

An exhibit from museum halls,

You watch me with bare hands and all,

Digging graves with aching will,

Thinking I’ll free your naked thrill,

Your truth imprisoned deep in soil,

Like precious metal freed from toil.

But still I dig, the graves extend—

All truths profaned from search’s end.

For only slightly do my hands shake

Above your body woven from

Caress and flattery’s fake charm.

In rare visits, I forget my vow,

And gleefully bash knuckles now

Until blood runs with every strike.

Porn star of heroin’s tale,

I catch your coming like a child’s trail,

Dreaming to scoop a butterfly bright,

And tear its glowing wings from flight.

But boredom tears that symbol wide—

Infinity’s sign torn aside.

Porn star of the bitter drugstore,

On tongue’s tip you hiss once more,

An alloy made of tin and silver,

True poison, venomous shiver.

I, the experimenter, pour your bane

Through veins as if an antidote’s gain.

My porn star of euphoric power,

Only you know that deeper flower

Than sex is your soul laid bare,

Wide open, stripped beyond compare.

My porn star in reflections seen,

Where glass and water in between,

Where fire and earth collide, unfold,

Naked to bone, to faith untold.

Beneath your mask of porn star’s mask,

I see but myself—no greater task.

[maslyatina]

Ode to the Not-Quite

It’s strange how time can come unglued —

You stand in place, but parts have moved.

One foot is here, one drags behind,

Still choking smoke in winter’s wind.

The glass reflects a fractured face,

Half dressed in silk, half dressed in rage.

The cigarette stays clenched the same —

Half blushing bride,

Half deadly flame.

⸻

Now I’m alone.

Back then, with you.

But still a ghost, just passing through.

You smelled like wealth — Dior and fire —

And filled the air with blind desire.

You hoped I’d drop,

Fall to my knees,

Crack open skull

On your mystique,

And bleed your name on every street

In words too raw

For tongues to speak.

⸻

Perhaps in some split world we’d fit —

Drunk, bitter, young, and full of spit.

We’d slash our love in brutal play

And blame it on a game we made.

Or maybe there, I loved so deep,

There’s nothing left of me to keep.

⸻

But here —

I am the hollow shell,

And “empty” is a name I spell.

⸻

I write my odes to every mark

That carved itself into the dark.

But yours, my dear, has one refrain:

We weren’t the same.

We shared no name.

We never burned

In the same flame.

[maslyatina]

You love to hear how Orpheus cried

To drag Eurydice back from the other side.

You think no love runs deeper, more divine,

Than one that’s coded to suffer by design.

You like to dream you’re some ancient bard

Breathing life into me, playing the part —

Brushing warmth on my frozen face,

Painting fatigue as some sacred grace.

But stop.

That doesn’t make me prettier, or pure.

You treat me like some captive soul,

Locked in dampness, sorrow, losing control.

You chase my echo, search for my shade,

Try to call me back from where I stayed —

To your holy lands, untouched by spite,

Bathed in healing, bathed in light —

All things you crave for your holy ascent.

But the truth is —

The ground gave out beneath my feet.

My body? A desecrated shrine.

Holy ground rejects me outright —

And I reject holiness just fine.

And the saddest part?

I’m not even your prisoner here.

No ransom paid, no chains to fear.

Truth is —

They listed me as a terrorist years ago.

And you still try to drag me out,

Like I’m your prototype for soul repair,

A beta test for resurrection flair.

Darling,

don’t you dare put me on display.

I’ll erupt —

a pocket-sized Pompeii,

lava dripping from my rage

onto each guest of your gilded cage.

It is sad, indeed —

That you see Eurydice in me,

When I’ve called myself Persephone

For over a century.

And by the way —

That whole “she’s suffering in hell” thing?

A myth.

[maslyatina]

Forgiveness is begged by the sleepless at night,

By those haunted by faces in shadow and light,

Who’d rather a caged crane, pale and thin,

Than a sparrow trembling in a frozen hand’s skin.

Forgiveness is begged by those who have lost

Every candle and match, and at terrible cost,

Like a madwoman screaming they cry to ignite

This damned house to ashes, to burn it outright.

They cry over ruins, with throats torn apart,

Ripping their shirts, clawing into their hearts.

And here I stand among their despair,

In ash and soot, in the smoke-filled air.

I build grey castles of dust and clay,

Raising towers that crumble away,

Designing a shelter — a place for the one

Who’s cursed all gods, and the saint undone.

Mirrors and shards surround where I stay,

And all I see is my face’s decay.

Can you ask forgiveness from your own eyes?

Or will blood spill first —

the cost of lies,

The first step to the punishment due

For every scar I carved into you?

Better tie my hands,

Drag them back tight.

I’m a terrorist, a pyromaniac —

I fight

With fire in my veins,

With a fuse to light,

Watching the chain of explosions bite

Through every mask I’ve ever worn,

And — yes — through yours,

Until both are torn.

I’m not afraid to be the blade,

But the thought of calm life leaves me afraid.

If there are no ruins, no choking smoke,

It means you were first to provoke

This carnival of broken things,

Of vandal hearts and severed strings.

I don’t need prayers,

I don’t need grace.

If I’m honest, I’d rather erase

Every chance to hear your name again.

Not from hatred — no, but because the pain

Of hurting those who barely breathe

Is heavier than what I believe.

Go now, leave.

I could wrap you in warmth, make you grieve,

But truth is — the blanket’s a burial shroud.

I’m not lava, no tidal crowd.

I’m worse —

I’m the match that burns itself hollow,

Just to share fire for others to follow,

Then curse my hands when the ashes remain,

When they, too, crumble and vanish in flame.

[maslyatina]

you open the door

and let me in.

no questions, no pause,

you just let it begin.

you show me your habits,

your patterns, your pace —

(I think you like testing

how much you can face).

you talk about coffee,

your favorite slice,

how long you stare

at your own face in the lights.

you say where you shatter,

where you hit the floor —

you don’t even notice

what you’re telling me for.

your walls — they listen.

mine? they burn.

a moat of fire

at every turn.

traps in the dark,

pressure on glass —

you cross it all

like it’s nothing to pass.

I open the door

and let you inside.

I smile as I speak,

but the truth doesn’t ride.

I talk of routines,

but it’s ruins instead —

I leave only ash

and smoke where I tread.

I say I’m a book

that anyone reads —

but I’ve been rewritten

by madness and need.

each page in a language

I barely recall.

read me, I dare you —

decode it all.

enough of the act.

tonight I’m with you.

it’s my turn to crumble,

to let something through.

my hands want to build —

you catch them mid-air.

you whisper “I like it

when fire is there.”

I’m starving, I say.

you smirk — so am I.

we play like we’re actors,

but we don’t need to try.

tonight we’re surgeons,

cutting in deep,

searching for shadows

that don’t let us sleep.

you hold your scalpel

just over my chest.

mine hovers too —

we’re both doing our best.

diagnose me, love.

I’ll do the same.

tonight we decide

who wins the game.

do you feel the pull?

I feel the reins.

you taste like hunger,

I bleed control in my veins.

but here we are,

no armor, no script —

just blood and breath

and hands that slip.

raise the stakes,

let’s break the skin.

see who cuts deeper.

see who lets who in.

you’re the patient,

I’m the cure —

or maybe we switch —

no one’s too sure.

[maslyatina]

And here I come again

to the places we claimed—

where the ground is no longer ground,

just ash

from the airliners

and childhood hopes

that came crashing down.

This was the site of first impact:

years of soft hands stroking your head

only to throw you full-force

against the wall

with the very same palm.

I return again

to our graveyard of planes.

Here lie the wrecks of our first betrayals.

In the baggage,

all our clothes were burned—

the lip balm shattered,

the perfume—your scent—

spilled and fused with the flames.

Now everything reeks of you

and fire,

the smoke hangs thick

with sadness,

bitterness,

and a hint of regret.

Black boxes lie everywhere,

each one trying to tell me

how the fall began:

an engine failed mid-flight,

or we crashed

into the steel hull of an enemy vessel.

One box says

we vanished in Bermuda,

your coordinates

gone from every radar—

no lighthouse in sight.

But truthfully?

None of that matters.

Want the truth?

I’d rather destroy every black box,

erase the voices,

bury the memories,

maybe even hold a funeral

for what we were.

But I can’t

scrub the burns from my skin,

or the scars.

For the two of us

who survived the wreck,

there is only one life left—

and one signal left transmitting,

still hoping

someone hears

and comes

to save us.

[maslyatina]

at last, the city is cloaked in shade

the sun rolls lazily past the edge of day

dragging with it every doubt and sorrow—

the city’s people remain

fragile flesh and lingering ache,

and the city opens its eyes,

quietly watching

those who still fight to survive,

not to fall,

not to leave their minds

smeared across crumbling walls.

this city’s stood two thousand years—

stone on stone,

as it was meant to be.

bone on dirt,

as it’s now accepted.

and the land around it

burns in flame and smoke,

perhaps this was always the city’s design.

within the city live the old,

the sick, the women,

the broken and the children,

wandering the alleys

seeking either prophet or priest

to hear them out

or scribble a script

for a cheap painkiller—

so the place where the soul

(or is it shadow now?)

no longer aches.

and if not God,

then maybe a deal with the devil.

but in this city

two thousand years dead,

all the towers were bombed long ago,

the wires long since vanished,

and the city has no shame left

to pretend it’s still lovely or new—

its mascara and lipstick

now soot and ash.

a city of tombs,

a city of drops,

a city that never lets go.

through your veins

its shadows now flow,

each night it consumes you whole,

and by day it settles in your ribs

and waits,

beneath your skin.

[maslyatina]

And then, they say, your waters will rise,

rushing forth in a furious tide,

drowning the towns, swallowing fields,

washing away every trace of desire,

burying you, barely alive,

deep beneath their weight.

The raging rivers I call my own

drag you down from your unsteady feet—

this water will bring you no peace,

no cleansing, no cure,

only the knowing of how to hold

the living and dead in the same quiet flow,

only the habit of tossing bones and silt

onto the shore at the break of dawn.

And if there’s no meaning for us to share,

no time left to waste,

then tell me—

what are you waiting for?

For the flood to take you whole?

[maslyatina]

To watch Vesuvius on Pompeii’s last day

and remain the last to see it fall.

Not cowardice makes a man flee a sinking ship,

but the will to live—

to carve a path with bared teeth,

to challenge fate

and take its answer without a flinch,

to know how to shield yourself,

how to stitch your own wounds shut.

To spin like a top across the earth,

to dance ‘til your heels bleed raw,

to burn the heather, the papers, the past,

to whisper lost prayers to gods long forgotten.

You, who walk where sunlight spills,

who keep both dream factories

and weapon caches tucked between your ribs,

who seek beauty in seconds

and find it where none was meant to exist,

who forgives pain for what it reveals—

there are thousands of faces inside you,

and all of them bear your eyes.

Your roots run deep, don’t they?

But roots draw blood as they grow.

To endure is to pay, to bleed,

to lose and to know the weight of loss.

The one who has seen the brightest dawn

knows what it means to survive the blackest night.

Everything in this life has its cost,

and nothing comes free.

But never, do you hear me? Never—

never lock yourself away,

never silence what still longs to stay.

You are human.

And if it burns, if it breaks, if it scars—

then you are still here.

You are here.

You ache, you burn—

and that means you’re still alive.

[maslyatina]

I play hopscotch at the edge of the roof

of my dust-stained high-rise,

tumble down, a pebble-small fall,

but refuse to shatter, to splinter, to break.

What’s a pebble afraid of, anyway?

I just crack, just scar, just chip,

but even then—

you won’t reach the core of me.

The core is stone.

The core is words, mother’s voice:

“Be brave, be still, be the soldier of tin.”

So I bear it. Endure.

I will learn to survive for the hundredth time.

It’s not the first time I’ve led myself

to the edge of a bottomless drop,

only to play my games there again,

to test how long I can balance,

to know what it means to be a warrior

who only fights what lives within

and never draws first blood.

God, if you exist,

pull yourself out of your cocaine shakes

and bless me with sense—

I swear, I’m smart enough to know

what fire zones cost, what they take,

yet I march my battalions in anyway.

It’s like Brodsky wrote—

standing alone in the heart of disaster,

staring into its sticky, suffocating dark,

whispering prayers to a god you despise.

So hear me, God,

and quell the lava that sears my ribs,

prescribe me peace, prescribe me light,

for even a small gray stone

cannot escape

the weight of your grief.