Soft

Dinara Rasuleva

I’m soft
и shuña kürä unbreakable
i’m socks
žyly äzeräk eladym

worn warm worm in a hole
alma öçendä
FOR A MONTH LAYING THERE NOONE WANTS TO EAT IT
сморщилось
æna
i’m ohne
I’m ohne
I’m statt
œatsyz Ishtar

min œat
ұят
ұят
ұят
sagät unberdä
min öidä
min äidā
min matur tel tugan telsez
min ломаная
min tigez
min soft häm shuña kÿrä vatylmyim
dagyn bashlana min min min

ÿzegez niçek?

the worm left her hole
and became holeless

Dinara Rasuleva is a Berlin-based immigrant poet*ess hailing from Kazan, born in 1987. Since settling in Berlin in 2014, she has triumphed at the city's Russian-language poetry slams twice and featured in publications like Stadtsprachen magazine and Words Without Borders. Rasuleva's poetry delves into the intersection of her Tatar identity with Russian language and culture, exploring themes of displacement, cultural loss, mental health, and memory. Her presence at literary symposiums like the PEN/Penn Your Language My Ear Translators and Poets Symposium, Russian Feminist Poetry Festival, and the Room to Bloom feminist arts festival, highlights her commitment to cross-cultural dialogue and linguistic exploration.

AUTHOR NOTE: This is a poem about having no home: being a stranger in your own country as an indigenous people whose language and culture is gradually destroyed, as well as in another country after immigration, a metaphor of an apple worm without a hole (home). Languages: Tatar, English, German, Russian.