Dasha Boichenko

Vancouver Flea Market On Main 2013 [1]
I had a chance to visit and photograph some of the most amazing treasures at the flea market. Fun!

*Click on the photos to see the larger versions - recommended
*Selected photos will be posted on matchmedia.org

In a room with long shadows, purple splashes, and
Books,
Stacked and pushed next to one another, thick and thin,
I sit.
Headphones to ears, direct translation,
The base notes hitting threads inside,
Slow turns on a chair.

Five minutes without talking.

On a day outside, hot wind hitting,
A healing procedure.
Walking around, jumping over ‘aryks’, and notes of somebody else.
I am one of the many, a girl in open shoes and closed shoulders,
Trying to hear the whispers of people in block grey buildings,
Those knocking on walls, asking for rain.

Five minutes without talking.

Seven women in bright dresses, seven scarves over their heads;
Three boys, two girls, building a zoo, riding bicycles;
One woman carrying heavy bags;
Thousands of the older ones inside the volumized squares,
Watching smaller squares change colors and news.

Five minutes without talking.

Count the countless, less.
I wait for the eighteen days to turn to something else,
The days that I waited for before, while counting the other ones.

I wonder what it’s like to fly above, and look down to the mess
That doesn’t exist,
That is all in a head of one, or many,
To fly, and wait until someone appears and looks up to wonder
What it would be like to fly above.

Five minutes without talking.


*Inspired partly by the song All Ears by The Whitest Boy Alive.

I enter a room after casual explanations. The nature of subtle moments in the chaos of interactions.
Do you mean that glance over the shoulder, the vivid smile of attention?
I am looking for something that I haven’t faced yet,
The chairs creaking in this stencil of a room.
Will you be the next one?

I have promised myself to say ‘yes’,
To be there, wherever that is, where no one else makes it and ‘cancels’,
Like a file in numerous folders, stacked on top of one another.

I get tired of the same question,
Part curious, part accusatory,
Where do I come from?
What are the extra letters I insert in these words while being sober?

Why don’t I smoke weed? If it opens the portal to fractures,
And crackles up with emotion?
Emotion of what. Dot dot d

Do I exist in the writing or speech?
If I can’t speak, does it mean you can’t listen?
Where is my center? I do not know.

I ask. And stay wide open.
In a room full of people.
Other times, a cube in a desert.

Insert meaning here. Loud speakers.
Count. Steps. Stairs.
Will I be the next one?

I know myself so well that
When I am pacing, looking for paper by a dark bus stop,
I find a tissue on the ground, and know it fell out of my bag.
Yellow streetlights hiding.

But if I know myself so well,
Why do I look away as you are talking?
Talking to me?
Waiting.

I look over. Little creature.
Yelling, ‘get out of the fucking bag!
Stop scratching my face.
Stop asking what time it is when you know it’s quarter to midnight,
With your heavy wristwatch.
Stop telling me you are lost, and can’t find home tonight.

You aren’t the only one.

I wake up. Maybe.
Sand, and my toes twitching,
An icon moved over. Click; disappear.
Am I an island?
Are you me?

There is no one else here.
If the decision is mine, then the change is now, I think
I think
I think

If you are the match, will you light up inside me?
And when I see the light over the water,
With the dew on every tiny leaf in this forest,
Waiting and asking, putting marbles in a box full of liquid,
I will Love.
And if nothing else, I will Reach.

I am doing all I can,

And all I can do is wait.

In a city of grey triangles and blocks,

A city of illuminated windows and

Proud T-shirts with fascinatingly white-teethed beavers.

I wonder around; sometimes slowly,

Sometimes rushing, to catch a glimpse of something

That matters, or has an illusion

Of love,

Of something big and inspiring.

I lose myself between pages and lines of books,

Hiding on some seventh floor of a library.

I go to popular “vintage” cafes,

To order food I didn’t want to have,

And spend money I didn’t mean to spend.

I look at people on public transit,

Trying to find a sense of accomplishment,

Or unity, or contentment.

They seem to be someplace in-between,

Talking to no one.

I catch the next bus.