2016

That winter, I didn’t have a passport.
Which is to say— I didn’t exist: 
not on paper,
not for tax officials,
the police, 
or local governing bodies, except for the one,
in whose heart I was still living. 
That winter, they were taken to the hospital, 
after a heart attack. 
That winter, my name transformed
in a thousand foreign tongues: 
Tati, Tatiana, Tanya, Tina—
I silently agreed to all the alternatives
just as you find agreement with the voice of a stranger
on your first meeting. 
That winter, I started working out, 
to hold onto the only thing left—my body, 
the one still capable of uttering my own words.  
And when I asked the trainer,
“The kilos I’ve lost, where do they go?”
he requested I not ask such heavy questions
of such a simple man—and in his manner, 
he jokingly said, “Aren’t you glad you are disappearing?”

_ Translated by Tamar Marie Boyadjian
Migrant Point, 2024