Lex Shramko
Publications
Alexa Schriempf writes as Lex Shramko, and has been featured in multiple media publications. Make sure to follow her on social media and subscribe to the email list for alerts on new publications — and for information on her new memoir (currently a work in progress).
"Quick, tell me: Are they alive or dead?"
My mother fled Ukraine in World War II. She says this is worse.
Washington Post. (25 April 2022)
280 Words
"I held her obituary in my hands, late at night at that portentous midnight hour, and I was in shock. And yet I wanted to stay right there, suspended in a state of unreality where all my mother’s stories were not only true, they also had an echo. Someone else grew up with these stories, too."
Unfamiliar Gifts
“'I am so sorry,' she repeats, breathing the words out with each exhale. She looks stunned, and I want to soothe over her exposed parts. I also feel—I think—relief. As if a dam has been erected and there is a small platform where I can move safely, even if only a few feet in either direction, while I watch the torrent rush by. But these waters are slowing down, stilling into gentle pools of invitation, and I don't know if I want—or even how—to test their waters."
Existence
"Minutes passed as the brothers rocked on the balcony, their sorrow radiating out from their ledge, across the boulevard and through the bare tree branches and up the concrete walls of the Derzhprom where it settled on the macaques’ window ledge. Leaning into each other, they also rocked, echoing the dance of grief on the balcony across the boulevard."
