image by Kiki Smith
human beings are a story; they are living a story and anyone open to this story is living a part – perhaps all – of themselves. —p.l. travers
i remember this magic moment.
i remember when it was censored and then when it wasn’t. i remember the hush and the quiet and the fear and the persecution. i do. i was there, not in this body but before. before. i remember what it was like to swallow whole poems. to have indigestion from words bound tight. gagged by words i could not say. throttled by words i did not want to hear. i remember when my soul was bound. when i died and my soul had left before my body. long before because the words were taken from me. and a soul needs words in order to thrive. i remember the geese and their migration across the lilac winter sky. i remember the ones that couldn’t fly.Â
i remember the spring too. i remember the stench and exhaust but i remember the slush and the thaw and the melting. i remember because i was there. inside the belly of the wolf princess. i was there when she roared and hiked up her skirt and forgot she had been molded by the communist party. i remember when she rebelled in high heeled shoes and danced naked at sexton fozd. i remember how her grandmother turned her head and spit on the ground and wailed for a return to stalin because it was too threatening. it was beyond free. it was the opposite swing of the pendulum and it was not balanced. it was magic but it was also careless. it was a seed. a stain. a sin. an awakening. an apple with a missing piece. a seductive pomegranate and a wolf pretending to be something it wasn’t. it was a descent. and it would descend for another hundred plus a hundred years. it is still descending. i know because it took a part of me and i’m still trying to claw my way to the surface.
i remember when there was music. and poetry. all night through the night until the pink blush dawn and woman’s day and the roses and the strangers on every corner shouting, screaming, bursting into blossoms about the mother. about mother russia. about every mother, every living breathing female miracle. daughter. aunt. sister. grandmother. god mother. i remember drinking an entire bottle of vodka accompanied by a pickles and fish and black bread and dancing. oh the dancing and the kissing. kissed by a woman and kissed by a man and kissed by the spirit of the dusha. the russian soul.i remember the toasting. hours and hours of toasts and poems and folk songs and rememberings. in russian. and i didn’t get drunk on fermented potatoes. i got drunk on poetry and dawn.Â
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