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Lyrics

In the summer
she walks through the rooms,
catching the wind in the windows,
like an amateur sailor,
who can’t set
the sails.

She stalks drafts,
setting traps for them.

But the drafts tell her,
“Your movements are too gentle, but your blood is too hot,
you’ll never get
anything in life
with that disposition!

You lift your palms
too high
to catch the emptiness.”
Everything that slips
out of our hands — is only emptiness.
Everything
we have no patience for —
is only the wind blowing
over the city.

The sun in the sky at dawn
is like an orange
in a kid’s schoolbag —
the only thing with real weight,
the only thing you think about
when you are
lonely.

© Serhiy Zhadan

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