Vasja Mickovski is participating in the International Literary Creation Competition, 7th Edition, from Skopje, Macedonia and is 19 years old. We thank him for his participation and wish him success.

Forget My Name

For far too long have you been thinking to sever ties,
To part with all your worn and weathered ways,
To breathe new air beneath unfamiliar skies,
To sip a different coffee, with the same old strays,
To crown yourself with some bright, easy grace,
As though joy hums softly in your place.

For far too long have you been playing the citizen proud,
Yet you tremble with your voice inside,
Yet you hope for rescue, even as the crowd
Begins to sliver away your fate till demise.

For far too long have you been painting your youthful face
With stale old makeup, thin and out of place.
For far too long have you been breathing that pallid dust
That cannot hide the freckles as it must,
Those under your wise smile long ago,
Having forgotten that their truth was meant to show.

For far too long have you been wearing the selfsame clothes
That flood your closet in a lifeless span,
Embroidered thick with dust their fabric grows,
And turn of you the grandest scarecrow-man.
Too long have you been jesting about your threadbare socks,
Yet you buy new pairs in ever-growing flocks,
When the old ones never seemed to be enough.

Enough – you still remember me, I see,
You search for me beneath the dancing sun,
Within its light, you seek me, still you run.
But I am not concealed, you foolish one!

If thoughts of me upon you weigh like stone,
If I am m the case where all your fears are thrown,
Or the wardrobe where lie the robes you hide,
If I am your mother, or your state, your guide,
Or just a wig of curls to mask your sight,
Or even makeup stealing nature’s light,
I know you’ll think of me again, somewhere in the night.

The path you hide is lighter than it seems,
More gentle than the weapon of your dreams.
For you know well what you are meant to do,
For you are still a child who struggles through.
For I am your mother, you have long foresaken,
And mistaken for one of your lucid dreams.
Your troubles echo those my people claim,
Now cut the cord at last,
Forget my name!


Soundless

In the gentle sunglight of loud memories,
Spark changes that time barks about,
As if it knows the echo of silence throughout.
And here I am, no doubt!
I sail, I conquer the sky,
On which the seagulls have long since parted,
On the soundless sea.

You seem to be sailing through life without air,
Yet some strange noise constantly overflows
Into your hollowed-out stomach that blows
The hair of the child you always were.
And you smile, and I watch you,
With your hands on your ears,
With all your childish fears
Of the soundless sea.

I think I've been crazy for a long time.
I'm looking for voices from the underworld,
Yet my head is turned upwards.
My heart aches, and my soul tightens,
Yet everywhere I feel that damned noise,
Which frightens the soundless sea.

And I know by heart,
That I don't have to look for peace,
Nor to have all the answers.
To escape my chaos – that is not my right!
And I used to think, and I still have the sight,
That there is something I am aiming for,
That there is a purpose beyond this echo.

My feet scrape on the sand of some beach,
Or it is the rusty floor of my room,
Or from the barque I am sailing on now,
Caught in some strange wartime doom.
Or is it a battle one cannot flee,
In which the world plays charades
On my soundless sea.

Something tells me I am not crazy.
A whisper digs into me in all the cold,
That threatens again beyond the noise untold
To the soundless sea.

Have these sounds stopped,
Yet I do not know?
Yet I seem to dreem,
To have rested long ago.
To have exhaled on some slope.
To have brought hope to this world.
To have said goodbye to the noise of seagulls
Above the soundless sea.

I am, I sail, I dream.
I gleam beyond my voice of fears.
I still wash my ears from sins.
I dream to blink, and not disappear.
And if I bear to hear the truth,
If I raise the masts high and free, 
Am I still a child of the sea?


The Lighthouse

Along the galley’s rim, where waters seem to gleam,
Where fishes flick against the sailors’ skin,
The helm returns to that circling dream
Where every journey finds a way to begin.

Far from the vast blue breath the captain once knew,
He murmurs softly through the creaking wood.
The wind, a sudden hand, then drives him through
To where the silent, winged illusions once stood.

One glance at heaven wakes the old man’s fire,
He stretches like a sail against the blinding light,
Begging the lighthouse to reach his lone desire.

Yet a woven echo draws him from the night,
It pulls his soul, as he brightly holds the helm once more,
While deep in the dark, miles apart, the lighthouse weeps ashore.