Řekli mi, že Češi jsou zavření jak okna v lednu.
Že se neusmívají, nezvou,
že ticho tu studí,
a pohostinnost se schovává za dveře.

Řekli mi, že mi bude zima—
nejen na kůži,
ale až na kost duše.

Ale...

Na vesnici mi někdo přinesl košík hub
a jen pokrčil rameny: „rostou.“
Na chatě mi podali bačkory,
staré, měkké, cizím nohám zapovězené.
Na zastávce paní podala termosku
a šeptla: „kopřiva, zahřeje nervy.“

Dostala jsem polévku v oťukaném hrnci
a slova: „vezmi si, stejně zbyde.“
Před vchodem stála lopata,
ne odložená — připravená, čekající dlaně.

V parku jsem se posadila,
a někdo mi podsunul deku,
neřekl nic, jen: „je chladná zem.“

A pak mi došlo —
že ticho tady není prázdno,
ale přijetí.
Že neptat se „jak se máš“
neznamená chlad,
ale úcta k tvému příběhu.

Češi nedávají sebe nahlas,
ale dávají čas.
Dávají prostor.
Dávají teplé věci v chladných dnech.

A já se učím
číst lásku ve skutcích, ne ve slovech.
A našla jsem domov
tam, kde mě nikdo nevolal —
ale nechali mě zůstat.

Warm Things on Cold Days

They told me Czechs were closed,
like windows in January.
That no one smiles, no one invites,
that silence here chills,
and hospitality hides behind doors.

They told me I’d be cold—
not just on the skin,
but down to the bone of the soul.

But...

In a village, someone brought me a basket of mushrooms
and only shrugged: “they’re growing.”
At a cottage, they handed me slippers—
old, soft, forbidden to stranger’s feet.
At the tram stop, a woman passed me her thermos
and whispered: “nettle—it soothes the nerves.”

I was given soup in a chipped old pot
with the words: “take some, there’ll be leftovers.”
By the entrance, a shovel stood—
not discarded,
but ready, waiting for another hand.

In the park, I sat down,
and someone slid a blanket toward me
and said, “the ground is cold.”

And then I understood—
that silence here is not emptiness,
but welcome.
That not asking “how are you”
isn’t coldness,
but respect for your story.

Czechs don’t offer themselves loudly.
But they offer time.
They offer space.
They offer warm things
on cold days.

And I’m learning
to read love in actions, not words.
And I found a home
in the place where no one called me—
but they let me stay.

You wake up tired,
scroll bad news until it blurs.
Answer emails, jaw clenched tight—
or can’t even bear to look.

You say “I’m fine”
with three tabs open—rent, repair, relief—
and one on how to sleep through the stress,
or how not to sleep all the time.

You forget.
You snap.
You soften.
You try again.

If you are carrying
children, parents, partners—
meals, medications, moods—
and no one asks how you’re doing,
this is me asking.

Not just if you’re managing.
If you’re okay.
If you’ve been held, or fed,
or even seen.

How are you, really?

If your brain jumps tracks
mid-sentence, mid-plan, mid-dream—
if the dishes feel impossible,
if you forgot again
and hate yourself for it—
please hear this:
you are not alone.
Not at all.

This world wasn’t built for minds like yours,
but that doesn’t mean yours is wrong.
It means you’ve been trying
to bloom through cracked concrete,
drinking whatever rain you could reach,
and still—still—you flowered.

If the world was made for
standing without thinking,
for walking without fear,
for climbing stairs without pain,
for seeing every sign,
for hearing every word—

If holding a pen, a fork, a steering wheel
costs more energy than you have,
if you measure your day in spoons left,
not hours passed—

you are not broken.
You are not a burden.
The burden is stairs with no ramp,
streets that swallow wheels,
silence when you ask for help.

If rest feels dangerous,
if joy feels stolen,
if you’re so used to pushing through
you forgot how to just be—
you’re not the only one.

The world wasn’t built for you.
Not for most of us, was it?
But you are here anyway,
making it work how you can.

That is not failure.
That is survival.
That is a kind of brilliance.

You are not failing.
You are not falling behind.
You are responding to a world
that punishes tenderness.

And still—
you are kind.
You are trying.
You are here.

If you wonder whether I mean you,
I do.
Even if the voice says "not me,"
I still do.

Come as you are:
tired, tangled, beautiful.

You don’t have to fix yourself
to deserve rest.
You don’t have to be better
to be loved.

You already are loved.

Still.

Still.

A Burning Haibun

They made sleep political. Not in headlines, but in forms, in protocols, in the quiet ways a schedule tells you whether your body belongs. You can’t resist when you’re required to recover off the clock. We don’t say no. Not when we need to keep the job. Not when the shift was swapped. Not when the rally starts an hour before closing. We don’t march, not really. Not because we’re apathetic—we work. We take doubles, or we don’t eat. And when the shift ends, the roads are quiet. Bus routes cut. Transit apps stall. Everything stops before we finish. The city keeps running—just not for us. Before the doors close, we’re already behind. The scanner logs us late. The rally is rerouted. The protest ends but the cameras don’t.

Truth gets lost in transit. It gets minimized. It gets overwritten by incident reports and flagged screenshots. Someone else might have signed in. The badge says you were there. She wears the same coat. The record isn’t precise. The logs are. The wrong keystroke, the wrong tone, the wrong name. While we wait for confirmation, the wiretaps keep listening. There’s a hum under every authentication without authorization. Words sift through filters we didn’t install. Feedback loops build static we can’t explain. Memory’s unreliable, they say. That’s why it’s flagged. It happened again, checked by default. Ask HR if it matters.

Clicking “yes” isn’t a choice. There’s a default. One misclick and the form becomes proof. Your cough was intentional. Your tone had motive. A delay is an alert. A hesitation is recorded. Silence becomes signal. Every move fits the pattern they were hoping to find. Every timecard out of sync, or skipped lunch, or extended shift. Every late mark is a red flag. Crime doesn’t need motive—it needs a record. Every system watches. Inbox latency leaves holes and AI sketches in the gaps. Auto-fills rewrite a pause into the story. One delay sets the scene. The response is filed. The verdict awaits. It is processed. It's always already done. This is it, now.

Absence doesn’t clear you; it follows you. You’re categorized. Reduced. There’s no room to breathe. Not even a moment to think like a human. Not outside policy. This is compliance. This is safety. This is survival. This is the cost of silence. Safety is security. Or punishment. Or both. Don’t speak. Don’t move. Don’t ask. Silence? It’s admissible. It’s archived. Consent is assumed. It has metadata. There's a record, and there's your login.



They made sleep political. ██████████████████
We don’t ███ march ███ because █ we work ███ doubles
And █ the ███ Bus ███ stops ███ running █
Before █████ The ███ rally ████ ends ████

Truth ███ gets overwritten ███████
Someone ███ wears ███ The ██ wrong ██ name
While ██ wiretaps ███ hum ███ through ███ static

Memory’s ███ flagged ██ again ██ by ██ HR
███ a ███ misclick ███ becomes ████ motive.
A ███ cough ████ becomes ███████ pattern

Every ███ skipped ██ shift ██ a ██ Crime
Every ███ Inbox ██ sketches ██ a ███ scene.
The ██ verdict ███ is ██ always ███ now.

Absence ██ follows ██ like ███ policy.
██ is ██ This ███ Safety ██ Or ██ Silence?
Consent ███ has ███████ a ███ login.



Truth ██ wears █████ wiretaps
memory’s ██ a ██ crime ███ scene ██ now
███ absence ██████ is ██ consent

Tonight the candle twines fire with fire,
braided flame blooming in the bowl of my hand.
It hovers—lucent, tender—
in the pause between ease and ache,
a flicker caught in the throat of the room.
I hold it like breath, like a name half-spoken,
until my knuckles remember:
this is how light becomes letting go.

The air settles. My ribs still.
I slip like light through closed shutters.
It isn’t night yet—
but day has already folded.

Wine pools lush—red as reverence,
thick with warmth and memory.
A spill of want. Of what-if. Of stay-with-me.
It clings to the lip of the cup,
drips slow into the hollows of my throat.
It stains the silence. I drink. It lingers.
Her hand finds mine—warm
as breath against a mirror fogged by waiting.
I drink again. I let it mark me.

Then the burn.
Not fire—
but the body forgetting.
Tongue lined with metal.
Sugar crusted with bitterness.
Hunger folds into hollow.
The sweetness stings.
I pour again. The blessing says full,
so I overflow.

Spices now—
clove cracked between molars,
cardamom crushed soft in the seam of my palm.
Orange blossom braided into cloth,
rose-oil coiled at the wrist,
where her mouth pressed once,
before the room became a threshold.

I lift the sachet, breathe deep.
Memory rises in the chest like smoke,
sharp and soft,
a sweetness I can’t keep.

Each comfort I carry
warms before it wanes.

And the candle—
when it lowers into wine,
it does not scream.
It sighs,
smoke curling like a secret told.
The light unspools with a hiss
and I watch the last flicker fade,
the luminous self un-becoming—
unspeaking—
like language, like appetite,
like I will, some day too soon.

I lift the smoke toward my chest,
toward the place
where asking outlives words.
It stays longer than the flame.
The silence, longer still.

I mark my wrists. I kiss my fingers.
I press them to my lips
until I remember they are mine.

The week returns and I'm not ready—
its gone-cold teas, its threadbare sleep,
the soup I nearly finish, but don't.
Her hands refill the glass I forgot about,
set it near, without her saying a word.

And I cross again—
from sacred into unsure,
from held to holding on,
from the pulse of the flame
to the slow twilight
of what remains.

Little pink tablet,
smooth-edged promise,
stamped plainly:
Pfizer on one cheek,
25 LLN on the other—
three pressed nightly
through foiled windows,
serials and stamps
faint as breath
in aluminum skin,
each blister cracking
a crisp metallic curse
beneath my thumb.

Every evening,
I cradle your trio,
pale pebbles resting
like softened bullets
in a cupped palm,
film-coated bitter blessing
should you linger
a second too long
on a dry tongue
before cool water
nudges you downward—
a ritual refined by need,
perfected by repetition.

Your chemicals
whisper harsh truths—
headaches blossoming
behind bleary eyes,
words unraveling sideways
into brain-fogged hush,
cholesterol rising
like invisible bruises,
numbers rising on monthly reports
I never wished
to read.

Yet faithfully,
I swallow you,
my flawed companion,
Pfizer-stamped protector,
quietly made in Freiburg,
boxed bureaucratically in Brussels,
dispensed freely in Prague—
no cost at the lékárna,
yet never without toll.
Each dose both leash
and lifeline,
each morning a maybe
tethered to the certainty
of side effects.

So here’s my humble gratitude,
Lorviqua—
double-edged healer
in pastel armor,
bitter miracle
cradled nightly
in tired hands:
you lace me with side effects, yes,
but also breath,
also days,
also time borrowed
from the teeth of chance—
and so I take you,
again and again,
pink pills pried
from foil
into fragile life.