LATE LOVE

I loved you—

to forgive,

yet found myself in a place

where forgiveness could not reach.

My hands were not for you,

they opened only in prayer

to stay in love.

I said, when I arrived,

“You will mend my wounds,”

but instead you opened my heart

and turned it into a vast

bleeding sore.

I waited for your balm,

yet you—named my illness:

“Separation,”

and with that name

you hurt me even more…

I saw my dreams in your eyes,

yet to forget them,

I looked at your lips.

First, you conquered my heart,

in the end, I became

a prisoner of your love.

I wept for you—

in every tear, a fragment of affection,

in every sigh, a great truth.

And now—

when I leave, saying,

“I’ll tend my own wounds,”

the hardest blow

is your

“too-late love.”

….

JUDGED MYSELF

I judged myself—

No witnesses,

no lawyer,

no accuser to show the indictment.

Only a mirror…

broken, silent.

I answered

to my innocent guilt—

my answers stretched endlessly.

I did not cry—yet within me

something cracked, shattering.

Words failed on my tongue,

tears ran down my face.

Before me stood I—

yet like a stranger…

Nowhere could I be truly myself.

Only in my own being,

I became everyone.

The questioning marks in my eyes

were wiped away by tears.

In my hand—a notebook,

even the words themselves

refused to write.

I did not write—

Words themselves refused to be penned.

This is no poetic gathering—

it is a trial.

Silence runs in my blood.

Beneath my nails, gathered envy—

gentle as silence,

sharp as pain.

I forgave myself.

I judged myself…

Jakhongir Nomozov is a young poet and journalist from Uzbekistan. He is also a Member of the Union of Journalists of Azerbaijan and the World Young Turkic Writers Union.