Ask Baba Yaga: The Compilation
By: Taisia Kitaiskaia
Tags: Advice, Poetry, Ask Baba Yaga

Our resident witch advice-giver is taking a short break. Here is her collected wisdom from the last few months.

Dear Baba,

Will lost love be regained? Can time heal a festering heart-wound, or will I be caught by fever? Help me, Baba: you know infection spoils the meat.

BABA:

If yr heart spoils; give it to a dog.) & he will love the good meat. now it is hard alive, but yr heart is alive in the running mouth. out of a jeweled solitude bath you rise Damasked & flushly. Yr life is yr own even if it barks like a dog.

***

Dear Baba,

I am facing a significant life change. Will I find happiness or is it a mistake?

BABA:

Wrench open; the blood jar(&inside a paradise of heads, aweberries). Woman is untamed & forlorn but once you thought you saw yourself, Birdly of Paradise. Now half in the burlap you lie wit knobby fetes. Speed with the godspeed & you will be good to eat. In the jar is the bloodspeck that blooms into a castle you can roam all yr days with yr Tender Babes by yr ribcage sleeping sweet.

***

Dear Baba,

Why do I keep getting drunk on weeknights? Then I go into work, weepy and ashamed. I do it only once a week, different nights. I went to an AA meeting, but I don’t think I am an alcoholic; I don’t drink on weekends. What do I do?

BABA:

Yr, feareye is askance &. Look ing falsely. Yr foot is hopping into the fireplace but you look out the window at yr lover. Mind the burning, tend the fire, ask me the real question when you see it Peering.

***

Dear Baba,

At night my body parts leave to fly off in different directions. How do I get them to work in concert with one another? P.S. Don’t bullshit me, Baba Yaga, or you’ll wish you were a festering wart on the ass of an ancient Hippo.

BABA:

You have not; salted yr bones with enough.glory — thereas, they are but sikerly & crumble. Such nightly is yr tutelage. What the bones know::what the bones know you are refusing to know. Seeking lies with the huntermouth. Follow the small plump beast to its cave & stick it goodly with one arrow good. Do not let it bleed. Otherwise you will be a plant fertilized by the shit of ruined animals moaning you deep into the Death-hole.

***

Dear Baba,

All I can think about is getting married to the man I’ve been in love with for a few short months. I know this is unreasonable as I’m only in my mid-twenties and an ambitious and independent woman. It also worries me as I’m a foolish romantic, always have been, and always think this way, no matter how many people I fall in love with. I want to simply enjoy this romance and stop being an idiot. Please soothe or correct me.

BABA:

No sootheengs shall there be, wench.) The longing & wondering is half the joys; of this deathlike pond you’ve a-stumbled into. Now you look up with milkweeds in yr hair & ask the Moose for answers. :Splash around & do not be so hollow-hallowed; every loving has a death sentence, no matter the babies born or wedding arches. If you,must know al the futures so be it but price is high: scrape & spit out yr own teethes & read them as Diviner in the palm of yr hand. Then ask yr bloodied mouth how yr princely loves you now haha.;

***

Dear Baba,

Most days it feels like I’m choking on ambivalence. I want to travel and explore and experience the world and have many lovers and make new friends and sleep in strange places, but I’m also terrified of everything, everything. What is the right thing to do?

BABA:

,terror is a cup of blood; trembling-tottling on the table. when you spills it & knocks it over,all the glee Sloshes forth & the boilings begin. lick the table’s sweet liqueur , then go find the one-eyed man whose blindness you can outsee with all the mights of yr skull full of shining through the forrest.; then you shall have yr minefield of lovers & mens & sleepings & even a strange One to always walk beside you whether you like or not.

***

Dear Baba,

I have recently fallen in love with a girl. We’re so perfect for each other that it annoys her — but alas, she won’t date me. Even though she tells me that she loves me and that I am someone to grow old with. Baba — I’m confused. Is it that I’m not cute? My hair is looking excellent today, and I even showered. Can you help me? Perhaps bewitch her so she’ll love me forever? my heart is a big, lumpy piece of brick.

P.S. Can you also make her less crazy? I love her, but she annoys the hell out of me. By the way, she just read that last bit over my shoulder and wants to kill me right now. Oh Baba… can you make me smarter too?

BABA:

)You two; are as potatoes overgrown with sprouted eyes, all tangled-up in each other’s growth. Love there may be but sense there is not, so stop wishing for all to be so clean. If you wish to wallow in the root cellar, know you will be visited by foully breaths & bored spirits of the kitchen. Nurse a map & go elsewhere. or accept that you both love the malaise & confusions, suck the rot from each other’s toes & wake for several more months to the consternations of yr silly vegetable faces. , irritable and not wholly adoring.

***

Dear Baba Yaga,

This summer I fell in love after thinking for so long that true love wasn’t possible for me anymore. Now that I have it, I get the fear of muddling it all up without even knowing, when all I want is so desperately to be good. How do I get rid of these feelings, Baba Yaga? How do I make it known how deep running my love is during times of duress?

BABA:

presently;you are as in a glass boat with this woman. and wondrous it is to see the creatures & sea-men & ladies & orbs glowing. but see is deep: there are , Twisted things there, tentacled & struck with dark longings. watch as they suck the coolness of the glass but know you are safely inside though yr eyes do not shut.

***

Dear Baba Yaga,

I am my own worst enemy. How do I defeat my worst enemy without defeating myself?

BABA:

Enemies; are not defeated, but out-tricksied & sent upon foul paths, thorned & starving,. So is yr task. You have many selves — some ugly & defeated by and by. Send them thither where they have a-wanting to roam anyhow. Tell them there is dark treasure over the hill, & give an enchanted ball of yarn to lead them to the secret graveyard. Meantimes, leave at home the Ones you hear purring & craving what is goldly & theirs.

***

Dear Baba Yaga,

Sometimes I think I’m no, no good at all. There is a wasp in the garage I cannot face. I complete the bare minimum of my responsibilities and chew words until the flavor’s gone, until they cannot do as I ask. Will I ever stop loafing and becoming a good writer? Are you ever afraid? Blessings.

BABA:

)Yr mind is as a wasp’s nest making, no honey & only stinging its own walls. That is a papery well in which to reside, gray & dust on the tongue. It is; not in the asking of the question but in the daily answering that is yr toil & plunder. & some nests are long-abandoned & think they are still filled with Nervous life. Are you still of this mind or have you moved to another?) If you inhabit then do so by the aching minutes. & as for me fear is a pushcart I roll jolly — down the hill & the faster it rides the faster do my Wounds in my heart flush with wind & so am I most blood-fueled and living in my deathly glory on this heart.

***

Dear Baba Yaga,

I’m in the midst of a very stressful program in a new career field. In my head I know this is where I want to be, but my body seems to think otherwise. I’m having difficulty sleeping and it’s making me feel psychotic; I’m so anxious I could vomit, and I sometimes feel I can’t stay here another moment. What am I to do?

BABA:

Uncram yr brain as much as you can; for it has too many things in , there, &they clamor all. ;It is truly also that Time will uncram yr brain for you, so let the unspoolings come. In the meantimes do not hold so much every feeling in the palm of yr hand like a beating frog-heart. This are the jumpings of the world making themselves known to you & not the you-yourself. & it is not so bad to vomit every once whiles.

***

Dear Baba Yaga,

I can’t stop falling head over heels. I was in love with someone, but it didn’t work, and now i am falling for someone else. Someone I think may like me at least; but who is also far away and is very close friends with the previous someone. I am torn between wanting him, suddenly, intensely, and wanting to be free and quiet and still. How can I stop thinking about how and the way it felt to dance drunk with him at midnight?

BABA:

There’s a whirling in yr brain, but inside every; whirling is a quiet, after the howl undoes itself. You can keep sliding down its spirals or you can sniff out the still spot and put yr toe in it & let it suck you in. Either one, loving or not;loving, is a sucking in. You choose yr sink-hole, knowing that always will there be more Whirlings & more absences stuck to those fragrant ribs.

***

Dear Baba Yaga,

I have had the misfortune of meeting five of my boyfriend’s past partners. Some ex-girlfriends, some “just friends” he happened to sleep with. Some of these women are my peers whom I encounter frequently in social settings. I recognize everyone has a past. However, I experience various negative emotions ranging from jealousy to anger. How do I deal with this gracefully?

BABA:

Once you knew these women; as ex-lovers of this man’s, they became as covered with thick, sweet, poisonous syrup. Getting( close to them, even looking at them — yr hands & tongue lick up the syrup & m ake you Sick. Yr man slathered in this syrup when he said unto you who they were; damages done now. Stay far away from the syrup, for you are a little mortal one.

***

Dear Baba,

I seek comfort from others because I am uncomfortable with myself. How can I quiet my own head?

BABA:

Birds , nest bring one thing at) a time into the home-hole: twigglings, & soft pieces of this & that, & the shiny things that make their Eyes catch & love as they peruse the earth’s sight. So must you drag back the victims of yr fancy into yr Skull-Nest; limbs of this & Thoughts of that, bones & shivering & stones — pick;pocket to borrow from others if that is yr need;; until you are looking upon a Skullhouse of yr own labor. For all of us have made ourselves partially of borrowings of blood & skin & sinew , & it: is a fool who thinks anyone’s head comes furnished.

Taisia Kitaiskaia is a poet, writer, and Michener Center for Writers fellow. She’s still taking questions on behalf of Baba Yaga at AskBabaYaga@gmail.com.

Photos via postbear, fouquier, Robin, Richard Kelly, Thomas/Flickr