I live for the Friend, the Russian Empire that is within me. I explore and am guided by my rich inner life: my deep inner voice can echo throughout the Caucus range; my personal, intimate, deep, hot yearning can warm the Taiga forest in winter, swim the Shosha River in Spring, rush over tundra with wild reindeer in the white night of Summer, and outpace these high-speed cities over again in Autumn. Fragrant Moscow lilacs bloom deep within my core. My whole being contains every stroke of every Fedoskino miniature painting ever crafted by delicate hands. My existence conserves the entire history of the Russian language from its Slavic roots to Bulgakov, Bunin, and Brodsky. My mind, like a Zhostovo painting, demands energetic, firm strokes with a soft brush. I am the fall of Kiev and the rise of Stalin. I am 30,000 people linked arm-in-arm in solidarity around the Garden Ring. I am a daughter of Russia and a triumph palace. Russia belongs to me. I am her little girl and her ruler. I will become another Russian folk woman, a city woman, a queen, a queer, a quiet light in the Square of Europe, if only to spite this cruel world. I will live another day to hold up the sky over Eurasia.
And I am none of this. I am consciousness. I am bliss.
The ancient mother. The stranger. One has heard my story and called out to me. Me! Russian girl. I am the mistress of the ancient and eternal. I live for the One and the many Russian girlhoods that will follow mine. I will grow old and cold as the Arctic. I am a rich resource eternally loved by The Mother.
