a Kind of Refugee / 22.05.2022

In Mykolaiv I had a hot shower every day. The apartment I stayed in was across the street from a tree-lined riverside park. Just like my beloved Rusanivka in Kyiv. Well, not exactly. Between the riverbank and the apartment building was a smashed summertime cafe, destroyed by a missile strike last month. My host’s bedroom window was a sheet of plywood. Her husband in the Ukrainian armed forces was taken prisoner of war in April. No word since then.

My second day back in Lviv I still feel reverberations of that city nestled between the bends of the river Buh, where Russian rockets explode in residential neighborhoods every night (though I’m not as sensitive to their dull rumble as the locals), and the bursts of warm laughter my companions release muffle pain that there is no time to feel.