Last night, 
a tree took root in my stomach,
and in my mind - 
the birth of an unwanted child.
Now I'am awake, and I ask: 
Who gives birth to trees?
Who plants them? 
Why does one water them,
and another cut them down?
Are there homes for undesired saplings,
as there are for children? 

January 2026 

The windowless room will collapse first in my heart, then in reality.
Wall by wall, like a foldable cardboard box.
The ceiling will fly away taking its cobwebs in the corners with it.
After that, the shadows will leave as well -
those shadows that my mouth was long unwilling to chew,
and that the imagination unjustly thickened.
The last leaf of the past will tear itself free and thud into the sea like a brick,
yet there will be no pain - in the sea, there is no pain; it only absorbs it.
Out of emptiness, space will be born where I can be young again,
then a child, and grow from the inside out - not backwards, as biology demands.
The recurring dream will melt away, too. There will be no anger or bitterness.
Only that which holds up the sky will remain, and within it,
a new being will rise high in defiance of all the dry lessons on flying.
The windowless room will disappear, and there will be no more rooms without windows.
In my hands, snowdrops will sprout without waiting for winter.
I will love, and with that love, I will build a hacienda from nothing -
only outlines lightly marked in chalk, just enough to know that
once there was a room here, my room from childhood.

January 2026

IN THE MOST HATED ROOM
How do flowers grow
in the most hated rooms,
leaning over tablecloths
while someone underneath drinks
bitterness?

Flowers grow
but only forward.
Their memory has been surgically removed, 
maybe by an anonymous Greek god.
They refuse to turn their heads toward the past
and even sunflowers deny it…
“We deny it”, they say.

​They don't live in the past
but they leave a scent behind -
a letter that someone will open
one day.

January, 2026

BAKU, I DREAM OF YOU
Do you know that I still dream of you?
I dream of your pigeons and houses,
and of your small, ugly apartment blocks
rimmed to the neck with gas pipes.
I dream of your monochrome streets,
among which Zaha's genius shines
in white, and stands out like a drop of blood
on your oil-perfumed face.
I dream of your trees - the lone wolves,
covered in a thin veil of dust,
and I dream of your golden teeth,
and I dream of your Flag Square,
and the bustle in front of the Nizami metro station.
I dream of your voice too — in a glass full of wind,
and of your empty benches on the shore, early in the morning.
I dream of you, I dream of you, my Baku -
how you keep injecting me every Friday
with the solitude of the sixth and the seventh days,
and how I love you even more for that.
I dream about how I’m losing you, but you don't care at all.
Because you don't need me; only I need you.
That's why I dream of you, Baku.
aa / 2023

Blind
                                                                     To Eltaj Zeynalov (1986-2025)
​
We were blind to you, though we believed ourselves to be sighted.
Only the Caspian Sea truly saw you. Every morning and evening,
as you walked down the crooked streets of Bayıl, though it is mute and has no eyes.
How short-sighted we were. We could see the great lake, yet not a single one of the seas inside your soul. We never heard the storms that tore you apart from within, and we dismissed their thunder.
Barriers rose everywhere in front of you, standing like colossi. You passed through them, with pain in your left leg, limping, sometimes breathless, yet still you managed, as if someone were calling you forward.
You showed the world your middle finger,
while a pale smile lay on your lips.
But why did you choose to stand against life, my friend, and not against death?
You spoke gently with the wind,
argued with the falseness in people,
And you yourself stood upright, the last leaf
on the trees along the seaside promenade.
Then you tore free, flew off and fell into the sea quietly, like a tired bird.
Were you waiting for winter, that deceptive handmaiden of death, or did she descend too soon? And you - toward whom were you hurrying, that you could not wait for us?
Now guilt weighs heavily.
We were near and far at the same time.
Our arms had not grown long enough to embrace you, like that black statue in front of the Yarat centre we used to laugh at…
And so it happened, my friend,
It was not us, but the sea that held you first, overtook us,
And after you, only the waves remained, and the silence that hurts more than they do.
---
Eltaj's webpage: https://eltajzeynalov.com/