A paper may be more important
than the weight of your desires, of dreams
of all the pain you carry in your chest, on heavy shoulders;
more than blue eyes where ships of desire enter and go out,
more than a heart attacked by storms and tsunamis.

It can increase the pain or reduce it.
A paper can define: where you can go and where not,
a letter called a permit to cross the border,
where the laws of passage there depend on someone,
as they are dependent here on someone else.

Human life is full of boundaries, obstacles, temptations,
Sadly – a letter can reduce your body weight,
the severity of the pain of love, of desires, of dreams, of sadness,
a letter can reduce the amount of joy, the amount of happiness.

A letter can measure the amount of breathing,
oxygen in the body, tension, pulse.
Because we are always surrounded by borders
that appear and disappear quite suddenly in our lives.

We know that borders have control,
police and soldiers ready with weapons in hand to carry out orders,
but we never do the right thing to replace them
with clover flowers, beautiful sculptures, and spring dreams.

Because the real boundaries are in the language,
in morning dreams and bad desires of night.
Astonishingly, people do not like borders,
but they are not used to living without them,
therefore they seldom understand the weight of a letter
that determines how much you weigh,
who are you and can you go where ever you want?

Boundaries are a burden and people are doomed to suffer
within them, therefore they find it difficult to increase the size of the heart,
of language, of soul, of dreams
and create the magnificent kingdom of love.

– Ndue Ukaj
(Translated from the Albanian by Edita Kuçi Ukaj)