'[Why do people die as volume...]', by Mykyta Ryzhykh
Why do people die as volume and not as emptiness? Why doesn’t your dead body disappear when you’re gone?
Why does the cemetery boast of its crosses and flowers cannot live without a mourning ribbon?
Agony is a very simple word. The word death is an even simpler word. It is better to remain silent like proud trees. It is better to drink silence like birds. It’s better to move through the air like words. It’s better not to live in a cage.
On a cast-iron evening, death knocked on the bird’s temple with metallic softness instead of fingers.
The night never ends anywhere. There are only two of us: me and death. I am always alone. Conscious death does not exist: however, as well as conscious life.
Mykyta Ryzhykh is the winner of the international competition Art Against Drugs and Ukrainian contests Vytoky, Shoduarivska Altanka, Khortytsky Dzvony, laureate of the literary competition named after Tyutyunnik, Lyceum, Twelve, named after Dragomoshchenko. Finalist of the Crimean ginger competition. Nominated for Pushcart Prize.
Published many times in the journals Dzvin, Dnipro, Bukovinian magazine, Polutona, Rechport, Topos, Articulation, Formaslov, Literature Factory, Literary Chernihiv, Tipton Poetry Journal, Stone Poetry Journal, Divot journal, dyst journal, Superpresent Magazine, Allegro Poetry Magazine, Alternate Route, Better Than Starbucks Poetry & Fiction Journal, Littoral Press, Book of Matches, on the portals Litсenter, Ice Floe Press, and Soloneba, the Ukrainian literary newspaper.
“A Shadow in the Afternoon”
Ethan Cunningham is a writer and photographer whose short works can be found in Abstract Elephant, New Plains Review, Topical Poetry, and others. He lives in California.