miyako73
08-08-2010, 11:25 AM
I grew up intellectually weaned by my father with poems and stories by Russian writers. I understood love and sacrifice from Leo Tolstoy. I learned to internalize pain after reading the works of Fyodor Dostoevsky. I got my patriotic fervor, sense of nationalism, and class consciousness from the poetry of Vladimir Mayakovsky and Alexander Pushkin. My father was an intellectual whore to Russian literature and idealist poodle of Socialism. He was a voracious reader and tireless Marxist ideologue.
The first time I read a poem written by Sergei Yesenin, I instantly fell in love with him. I felt he was still alive, and he wrote poetry just for me. I was about fourteen when I had the urge to know more about him. I waited for him in my dreams. I wanted to see his face, feel his body, and hear his voice, even just a whisper. I felt even his sneeze would be poetic enough to put me into a trance and make me offer my body, and I would be lucky to have the chance of feeling his breathing against my chest while comforting him. Sergei ignored my desire. Even for a brief moment, he did not appear in my dreams.
I stopped waiting for the erotic gift of midnight and slumber. I visited several libraries to find any image of him. Even a sketch would be enough to satisfy my lust. It took me six months to finally find a photo of him printed on a fading page of a book detailing his life. It was an orgasmic moment for me. Sergei was handsome, fresh, and youthful. His looks was poetry in itself. He made me think that if God does exist, He is the greatest poet of all for creating such a man. The life expressed through his persuasive, nonchalant eyes was like an exquisite word in connivance and contradiction. I wanted him. His lips were like those of a shy poet refusing to share even a syllable. I wanted to kiss him. I could be a slave of his flesh the way his words hypnotized me. I adored him.
Sergei reminded me of Arthur Rimbaud, the wild French poet whose works once drove me to salivate and play myself. I was hesitant to read Sergei's biography. I did not want to know everything about him. He might have done something that would hurt me and make me wish the book about his life did not exist. My desire to know him was as overwhelming as my imagined idea of him as a great man. Turning my back was like rejecting him and not accepting his faults and misgivings. I should be his understanding lover. In the end, I chose disappointing pain and regret over perfect hallucinations and knowing him over dreaming. I read the book.
I was very jealous after finding out that he was once married to the great Isadora Duncan, the doyen of feminine grace. If women want to learn sensuality through pointing with toes as if a ground were heaven, swaying of hips like romancing with a phantom prince, or delicate moving and stretching of arms and legs like a flight of a freed phoenix, Isadora's movements were graces from the goddesses in myths and legends. Like Martha Graham, she taught me about the beauty of being a woman and the power of a subtle elegance. Several months later, Isadora left him. My heart sunk. It was so cruel of her. I could not forgive what she did to him. Losing love is the gravest punishment. My sympathy belonged to my Sergei.
I continued reading about his lost love and sad life. He was wild yet lonely. He loved life, yet he longed to rest. Why did Sergei bother to give his heart to someone who did not desire for it? I felt like I wanted to tell him I was here ready and just for him. I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs. I could open my chest and grab and show him my bloody heart no matter how gory it would be. I was all his. Everything I had was his. I just wanted him to live. I was devastated. I cried. Even the whistling tropical breeze of summer that year could not mute my sobs. Sergei, with a dagger, slit his wrists like his pen piercing the emptiness of a white paper. His blood oozed like ink birthing haunting imagery and poignant metaphors.
I cheered when he survived, but living was too painful for him. He wanted to rest from the travails of life and free himself from the agony of suffocated breathing. He hanged himself the next day. I felt I also died. It seemed life that moment was meaningless. I closed the book speechless and shattered. He ended his life like he wrote a poem needy of a period and hungry for an end. He left me with many questions that would forever remain unanswered. After exhausting all my tears, I asked, "Why, Sergei?"
The first time I read a poem written by Sergei Yesenin, I instantly fell in love with him. I felt he was still alive, and he wrote poetry just for me. I was about fourteen when I had the urge to know more about him. I waited for him in my dreams. I wanted to see his face, feel his body, and hear his voice, even just a whisper. I felt even his sneeze would be poetic enough to put me into a trance and make me offer my body, and I would be lucky to have the chance of feeling his breathing against my chest while comforting him. Sergei ignored my desire. Even for a brief moment, he did not appear in my dreams.
I stopped waiting for the erotic gift of midnight and slumber. I visited several libraries to find any image of him. Even a sketch would be enough to satisfy my lust. It took me six months to finally find a photo of him printed on a fading page of a book detailing his life. It was an orgasmic moment for me. Sergei was handsome, fresh, and youthful. His looks was poetry in itself. He made me think that if God does exist, He is the greatest poet of all for creating such a man. The life expressed through his persuasive, nonchalant eyes was like an exquisite word in connivance and contradiction. I wanted him. His lips were like those of a shy poet refusing to share even a syllable. I wanted to kiss him. I could be a slave of his flesh the way his words hypnotized me. I adored him.
Sergei reminded me of Arthur Rimbaud, the wild French poet whose works once drove me to salivate and play myself. I was hesitant to read Sergei's biography. I did not want to know everything about him. He might have done something that would hurt me and make me wish the book about his life did not exist. My desire to know him was as overwhelming as my imagined idea of him as a great man. Turning my back was like rejecting him and not accepting his faults and misgivings. I should be his understanding lover. In the end, I chose disappointing pain and regret over perfect hallucinations and knowing him over dreaming. I read the book.
I was very jealous after finding out that he was once married to the great Isadora Duncan, the doyen of feminine grace. If women want to learn sensuality through pointing with toes as if a ground were heaven, swaying of hips like romancing with a phantom prince, or delicate moving and stretching of arms and legs like a flight of a freed phoenix, Isadora's movements were graces from the goddesses in myths and legends. Like Martha Graham, she taught me about the beauty of being a woman and the power of a subtle elegance. Several months later, Isadora left him. My heart sunk. It was so cruel of her. I could not forgive what she did to him. Losing love is the gravest punishment. My sympathy belonged to my Sergei.
I continued reading about his lost love and sad life. He was wild yet lonely. He loved life, yet he longed to rest. Why did Sergei bother to give his heart to someone who did not desire for it? I felt like I wanted to tell him I was here ready and just for him. I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs. I could open my chest and grab and show him my bloody heart no matter how gory it would be. I was all his. Everything I had was his. I just wanted him to live. I was devastated. I cried. Even the whistling tropical breeze of summer that year could not mute my sobs. Sergei, with a dagger, slit his wrists like his pen piercing the emptiness of a white paper. His blood oozed like ink birthing haunting imagery and poignant metaphors.
I cheered when he survived, but living was too painful for him. He wanted to rest from the travails of life and free himself from the agony of suffocated breathing. He hanged himself the next day. I felt I also died. It seemed life that moment was meaningless. I closed the book speechless and shattered. He ended his life like he wrote a poem needy of a period and hungry for an end. He left me with many questions that would forever remain unanswered. After exhausting all my tears, I asked, "Why, Sergei?"