GORDANA KARAKASHEVSKA

 

 

The Game Of Shadows

 

There is another me, her name is the same as mine, Ana,

only in the morning when she wakes her eyes are darker

like my mother’s,

and she speaks to my husband while lying

on my pillow with that cheerful, playful voice of hers.

She kisses my daughter on the forehead, wishing her

good morning, and successfully hides from me

everything that escapes and falls away into the past.

There is, I tell you, another me,

she has the same last name as mine — Karakash —

she reads my books, and imagine!

When we are alone she reproaches me

with a voice that is entirely mine

and manages to make me cry. Every time.

I painted, I lived in Turin, but she brought me back.

“You are young, life is ahead of you,” she said.

I close myself off, yet she finds me at night to tell me

how much I have not done.

“You agreed to everything in this life,”

she says. “You accepted everything!”

“I would not!” — she screams in my face.

“I would rather die!” — she whispers in my ear.

Everyone I know loves her more, Ana Karakash.

She is kind to shopkeepers,

works in a library, and gives smiles to everyone.

She hugs my husband and my daughter,

who do not actually exist,

we invented them,

and she tells me: Jump!

 

To Jump Over The Sorrow

 

My name is Ana,

father of mine, if you had left me while I was a child

all these years I would have searched for you

under a tree and under a stone

and in the sky and on the earth.

This way, we lost each other in life,

you do not know where I am or who I am

and not a single tear fell from your dry eye.

Sorrow, jump over me sometime!

Mother of mine, if you had embraced me while I was a child

I would have blossomed like spring

and I would have leapt into life without fear.

This way, I say to autumn — Good evening.

Only one tear at the corner of your eye I saw

before you died.

Sorrow, jump over me sometime!

My name is Ana.

My life hides an ugly story.

My life is a knife with two blades.

I have neither a house nor God.

If you see me crying, that is the pain speaking.

I was a child, I was a daughter, I was a sister,

I was a lover, I was a woman, I was a mother.

Now I am no longer.

Sorrow, jump over me sometime!

 

GORDANA KARAKASHEVSKA

 

GORDANA KARAKASHEVSKA (born 1973) is a poet, essayist, writer, artist, and photographer. She spent several years living and working in Turin, Italy, an experience that left a deep mark on her as a creative person and artist. She is engaged in various forms of art and pursues photography in her free time. She has been writing since she was thirteen, actively participating in regional competitions in both art and literary works. For her, writing is a way of life, and art is a universal language. She writes poetry and short stories primarily in Macedonian, but also in Italian, Serbian, and English. Her poems have been translated into multiple languages and published in domestic and international online communities, magazines, and anthologies. Books. Poetry: A Broken Poet and Other Poems (2021), House of Paper (2022), The Way of the Water (2024). Prose: Signor Giordano and Reflections on Doubts, Dilemmas, and Questions and Some Other Small Grains (stories, 2021), Undressing in the Year of the Goat (novel, 2021), Everything In This World (novel, 2025)