MY FREEDOM’S DILDO

VITALIY YUKHIMENKO
TRANSLATED BY KATE SHYLO

this is – a dildo-poem
and it is so huge
that it fills the entire depth of freedom
generously measured
for me and those like me.
this is a verse of our freedom
stretching over the entire bed,
and the length of a fly
of a curtained window.
freedom, granting the right
to openly demonstrate closeness
only in an acceptable place,
to openly demonstrate tenderness
only for the sake of intercourse,
not to fall back on indecency
of tender acts,
of sentimental touch,
of warm accidental stares.
our perverse closeness
knows of no feelings of softness.
what a good mating,
what else does a homosexual
needs to be happy?
this is – a dildo-poem,
a dirty little thing
for dirty musings on
homosexuality.
a living and harmless teenager
peddles and exterminates the outcasts,
for every level, a prize.
a big cheered up man
beats the red-haired back
of a pedigreed dog.
a beat old lady
is rummaging through a trash can,
spreads around
the gracious sound of bottles.
instead of a mouth I have an anus
with a huge dildo sticking out of it.
I walk and cover with my hands
my face, just so no one sees
my freedom’s dildo.

Vitaliy Yukhimenko was born in 1981 in Kiev. He graduated from the philological faculty of the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, and has worked in print and electronic media with a focus on Ukrainian LGBTQ issues. His poetry was published in Ukrainian and Russian journals–in Russian ones before the start of Russia's aggression against Ukraine. He currently lives in Kiev and is engaged in the cultivation of indoor plants.

Kate Shylo (founding editor) is a Crimean writer, photographer and translator. She obtained a Bachelor degree in English Literature from Kingston University London in 2018 and a Masters degree in Comparative and Cultural Analysis at the University of Amsterdam in 2019. Her work has appeared in The Collidescope and Dimeshow Review. A nomad at heart, Kate has been travelling around the world gathering stories. She is currently an MFA candidate at Naropa University’s Jack Kerouac School.