Tell Me About the Coldest Place on Earth Again by Evgeniya Dineva

Evgeniya Dineva

Evgeniya Dineva is a poet from Bulgaria. Her works appear in Oxford Poetry Library, The Hong Kong Review, Ethel, Asian Cha and others. Her debut poetry collection Animals Have No Fathers came out in November 2023. Evgeniya is a fellow of the Elizabeth Kostova Foundation for Creative Writing and the recipient of the Traduki Writer Grant, Tirana 2025.

Tell Me About the Coldest Place on Earth Again

It was a morning of chilly air and the eerie silence

of August coming to an end.

I had just turned eighteen, I was leaving, and you kept frowning

at the green lake in front of us. My hands and legs had gone numb

because of the stone I’d forgotten we were still sitting on.

Time moves differently when you are afraid for someone else.

“Antarctica is so far away no one will find me there.”

You pulled one of the reeds growing nearby, and it sliced your fingers.

The Antarctic midge lost its wings to keep from being blown away,

but it also can’t escape its birthplace.

By then my mom had already told me what J did,

and I had no right to promise I would come looking for you if you ran.

“If I go, my blood will freeze and stop moving. I’ll be just like ice. “

Your hand closed around the reed and crushed it.

When ice shifts along cracks the vibrations it creates

resemble singing.

I know you couldn’t make a sound when he came to you at night.

“There will be just an endless vacuum with no before, no shame, no nothing. “

The coldest place on Earth is where time stops the body.

I would take it, even if it meant you forgot me, too.