Dzvinia Orlowsky
Dog Girl’s Sick of Song:  Oxana Malaya
—after Sylvia Plath’s “Mad Girl’s Love Song”

I was born a real girl but came to light as a dog instead.
They barked. I answered. Left outside:  3 years old, I still couldn’t speak.
(My parents thought me a weary load / my parents wanted me dead.)

I slept on a kennel floor, learned to howl to be fed.
I scavenged rubbish tossed to dirt, refined tearing meat.
I was born a real girl, grew up dog instead.

Surrounded by bitches—my renown was bred!
They taught me to lick myself clean.
(My parents thought me a weary load / my parents wanted me dead.)

Matu i Bat’ko, shit-drunks, played to the frayed thread.
Twenty-two years later they refuse to be seen.
I was born a real girl but grew up dog instead.

Does abandoned make us less human, toward what god are we bled?
Wild child mongrel, I’ve learned no one to please,
(My parents thought me a weary load / my parents wanted me dead.)

I have no use for mirrors, a feral heart needs no feather bed.
Tell me I’m family, shock me into your dream.
Born a girl, lived a dog, became a woman instead.
(I carry no weary load / my parents are dead.)

*based on Oxana Malaya, a Ukrainian woman internationally known as a feral child raised by dogs.