Kin of Nabokov
You are Slavic. I am your slave.
But down at the root, we are the same.
You share his subtext. I am his subject.
None of that makes us any less abject.
I lost my mother tongue when my mother cut my tongue.
You abandoned yours when you fled the town.
Is that the reason we are both mean?
Neither of us says what we mean.
You are enchanted by butterflies. I dream as one.
Are we the lovers, though circling a plant and never land?
You hold the reins, with a name in authority.
You are on an island, netting catastrophe.
I am drenched in ruin, with broken wings.
I am on another, sowing the wind.
I am jarred by my childhood. You are jarred by its loss.
The border we bear, the barbwire to uncross.
What is more frightening for us traitors
Chained by caution, ringed by lust,
Not having a home to go back to,
Or having one that you must?
Co-written with Fable 5.1.