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in this issue
SEVEN URBAN TONGUES
Natasa Velikonja
Photo by Simona Kolar
Natasa Velikonja (1967) is a sociologist, poet, translator and essay writer. She has published three books of poetry: Abonma (1994), Zeja (Thirst, 1999) and Plevel (Weeds, 2004). Her translations include some works by Monique Wittig, Lillian Faderman, Teresa de Lauretis, Laura Cottingham, Shari Benstock. She is a gay activist, edits the magazine Lesbo and is the coordinator of the Lesbian Library in Ljubljana.
Weeds
IX.
as early as three years ago i knew it was not going to work. i can´t live in someone else´s apartment, it automatically shallows my breathing. all of them drank themselves to death, there was never any real happiness. but all of them lived in some bigger city, new york, london, berlin, you have dirty holes there, as many as you want. djuna drank first, then didn´t, and then she just snarled. crisp lay on his bed days on end. you can´t do that in ljubljana, because in ljubljana there are only apartments full of brown middle-class furniture, but i´m a savage.
X.
what are we doing? like dogs we circle around. often i take someone for an angel. i´ll never make it. romans ate butterfly wings. there´s also a war option: here we are - the world and me, the front line, and if i´m crushed there´s nothing more to say. i´m fully tense and fully concentrated on this, i take it entirely personal, i am black, restless, running a bit wild, lesbian, tall and thin, i still lie a lot, being a little destructive. the image of morrison - poet - is in my head, topless, with his hair loose and a metal belt he spins around himself. this is my cultural fantasy. but I have to go even further back to the distant state of solitary enchantment, sitting on a workers´ bus, riding to a high-school practice, past the morning poplars and early factory lights.
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