Love Ana, Ljubljana is a nightmare Poem by Brane Mozetič

Love Ana, Ljubljana is a nightmare. The first
thought that comes to your mind is to cut
your wrists, to tie a noose, or to leap
from a buliding. You'd have to be constantly drunk or stoned
to take it. Friends aren't friends, acquaintances aren't
acquaintances, lovers aren't lovers, a mother isn't a mother,
a father isn't a father, a wife isn't a wife, the ground isn't the ground,
all hover in the never ending emptiness, hallucinations, ghosts,
freaks, water isn't water and air isn't air, fire isn't fire.
Love Ana, your city is the end of the world
without any form of hope, there's vegetating, there is
torment, there is a pinching in your stomach, a concentration
of all the negative forces doing everything in their power
to make an idiot out of you, an invalid. Ljubljana,
the sweet sounding snake that wraps itself around your body,
softly, with feeling, so you run out of air and can't get rid
of her, always follows you, slithers after you
so colourful and un-dangerous. Disappear, plunge into
the swamp, return to the mud,
save us.

Translation: 2003, Elizabeta Žargi and Timothy Liu