Warsaw
Writing

Warsaw was rebuilt from old photographs. You can see the seams if you know where to look.

Rebuilt city · Brutal winters · The silence of survival

Warsaw was systematically destroyed — 85% of the city demolished between 1939 and 1945 — and then rebuilt from old photographs, paintings, and the memories of survivors. The Old Town is therefore a reconstruction of a reconstruction, a copy of something that no longer exists, which makes it philosophically interesting in ways that genuinely old cities are not. Warsaw knows that identity is something you build, not something you inherit.

"Warsaw to Kraków in two hours, flat white fields all the way, and the woman across from me crying without making any sound at all. Not distressed. Just crying the way some people do on trains, as if the motion permits it."

Tumbleweed Words — Train, Poland, winter

The Warsaw writing is the quietest in the Tumbleweed Words archive. The city's history resists literary decoration. What it demands is precision — exact observation, exact language, no sentiment that hasn't been earned. The overnight train from Berlin to Warsaw, which appears in several pieces, is the structural metaphor: moving through darkness toward a city you cannot yet imagine.

David — Tumbleweed Words Flash fiction and poetry written on trains, in hostels, and in city streets. Published in Litro, Adelaide Magazine, Cleaver Magazine, and The Dundee Anthology. Pushcart-nominated. Five years on Substack.