The Dark Ages

translated from Lithuanian by Irma Šlekytė‍

There’s so much beauty it takes my breath away,
but in the evenings I talk to myself in my mind,
I say it’s not too bad, it’s all bearable,
it’ll all wash off in the salty water,
I tell myself I’ll climb atop one or two fortresses,
I’ll have a couple of glasses of Sardinian wine,
I’ll sail by some mysterious sea caves and be free;
my dark ages will pass without having properly begun,
that’s what I tell myself at night, before the flamingos start singing,
that’s how I rage when my three-year-old son does not see
the beauty, then the clouds of sadness gather – he wants home,
back to his kittens, so I rise like a storm: why do you not
want to see the vast world, why do you need that
damn triad – safety, consistency and a calm mother?
What do I need? What do I lack? We told everyone we
travel together, we want our boy to see the world, Italian winds
and mountains, and us, away from daily routines, washed up on a new shore.
It’s not you I wanted to show the world to, it’s myself, so that
my dark ages would go by, but I never escaped them having realized –
when I give to you, I rob myself.