#ksenija tarasova

[imagoxenya]

Please hug me, I feel...

Пожалуйста обними меня, мне…

1990s

Black clouds against turquoise sky.

A tall gaunt knight, he’s made of hatred, I don't think he was even born. I'm a princess. He’s got white eyes and long white hair like dead lightning.

I sing “you see” in the dusk, among the plastic sheets falling down from the furniture. Like in an MTV music video.

My mother lies on the floor face down, holding it in her hands. Father carries me into another room:”It’s going to be alright.”

Parents discover a lump in my lower abdomen and call an ambulance. I don’t want to be taken away. There’s a Tremors promo showing on TV.

I vividly remember the anesthesia smell. Doctor voices turn robotic before fading out.

I lie on the table, like a frog. I’m almost touching the greenish ceiling. Doctor is pulling the stitches out, thread looks like a micro roller coaster.

Lunch is white mush smeared on a slice of white bread.

Everybody is watching a movie in the corridor. I want to get closer to the TV, but my legs are weak from pain and I lean on the back of an armchair taken up by another boy. Rugged lilac fabric. Or was it the jumper of the boy’s mother, who threatened to beat me up unless I stepped away from the chair? 

For some reason I was always afraid of my taxi driver uncle.

2000s

I picked a glossy cellphone case with a tribal design, pink on black. I identify with lilac, it makes me feel angelic.

Digimon Adventure is showing on a German channel. I want to be Kari and have an older brother like her.

In sparse moments of privacy I tie sheets and clothing into dresses. I become very good at living in between the time.

The swimming pool lessons started. I notice my back has an arch. I try to straighten it.

My teens are an ugly blur.

I badly want to be their friend, I mistake it for a crush.

I nailed my father to the ground, but he wouldn’t stop thrashing and spewing threats. That night I dreamt somebody loved me. Or was it the night before?

The doorways are made of flesh and I’m cutting at the edges with garden shears.

“I respect your power, your intensity.” An older friend is too insistent on kissing me on the lips ”as a sign of respect”. He leads me by the hand to show me something later, but never finds the room.

Dad falls asleep in a sauna.

A guy sits by on the bus, I try to breathe slowly, so that he wouldn't notice.

I started skipping gym classes. One after another.

I’m walking naked through the forest surrounded by fields of phallic mushrooms emerging from green mist. I cover my breasts, I feel vulnerable.

2010

I still feel the saliva on my right ear, I’ll wash it off conspicuously at the gas station stop. Relax, Take it Easy by Mika plays. Sometimes I still can’t shake that feel off.

2011

I’m squeezed between the moving male bodies, metal and greasy aprons. I don’t have time to think or feel. There is no way you can move too fast or shout too loud and clear. The cold room door shuts close, is there a way to open it from the inside?

PIctures overlay, the touch of the fabric causes me panic, I resist the urge to jump out of the uniform and hope no one notices.

2012

“Эй, смотри, какая сука” I hear from two guys passing me by. 

“Да это же пидорас!” I hear from behind. I’m scared.

-

I just shaved my head, but immediately miss the hair. It almost physically hurts, but now I must commit. 

My dad falls ill.

It’s autumn, I fall asleep by the weaving machine in the attic. I am someone’s fever dream.

“Лысая башка, дай пирожка”

My body gives up and I go on punching the table screaming, I feel like a prisoner facing the concrete wall.

I feel my head and find the crevices I never thought existed.

-

He says I look like Grimes. I don’t get such compliments often.

Snow carried in warm air like little lights.

I burrow the nose in my spacious scarf. I am a soft body in a chrysalis. I’m like a child.

The highway noise fades in and out.

I lie in the dark, picturing what I’d look like if I was a daughter. I feel peace.

-

I must go outside, but it’s dark and my memories of being jumped up are still too fresh. An anxiety nap turns into sleep, my body falls ill.

The christmas tree is heavy and bruises my hands, there is no sky and the streets surround me like decorations for a 90s Russian crime series. I’m not here.

-

He meets me at the airport, his face feels tired and annoyed.

I rest my hands on the bag, my nails are longish and gestures feminine. I’m afraid he picks up on that and doesn’t like what he sees.

It’s snowing like in Siberia, it’s Berlin.

We drink wine on an old sofa, there are so many people, I love his warmth by my side. Horizontal movement of the S-bahn, I throw up on Medvedev's portrait.

-

Dog Day Afternoon on a movie night, his leg touches mine.

 “Softer, softer” he teaches me to kiss.

I feel painfully pried open, so we stop. I weave my hands around him as we fall asleep, but he isn’t into that.

-

We watch a movie and smoke on a couch. I recline to blow the smoke out. T-shirt slides off my shoulder, normally I would adjust it, but here I feel safe.

-“Is your mother beautiful?” 

-“I don’t really know, maybe.” 

-“Because you are so beautiful”

-“I never really felt beautiful.”

-“I don’t believe it. You’re also really androgynous.” 

-“I feel like an alien” 

-“Well, aliens are androgynous.”

He’s like a big friend who makes me feel protected. I rest my head on his side and talk about my deceased cat Ksjusha and how I felt her spirit by my side.

We dance away to 80s and 90s hits, there's a spirit of a new era in the air.

2013

I misread the exam task and picked a nonexistent topic, there is silence, I bite chunks from the inside of my lip.

-

I run in a white dress, almost drift in the morning mist. 

A phone call from my taxi driver uncle wakes me up: "Your father is gone, you don't have to visit him anymore."

I’m a funeral spectacle with my shaved eyebrows, an oversized scarf and an overall soft aura. 

An older man paces around. “Hey girl, have you got breasts? Yes, of course. Then why did you leave them at home?”

My friend gets out of the taxi, the driver doesn't take the turn, I silently panic for a few seconds. I never take taxis on my own.

Lying on the floor at the end of a yoga class, letting sounds enter my ears. My body is just a vehicle, I'm simply in it.

2014

We sit by the channel watching the colour of our nails and comparing our arm hair. 

I feel the upper lip stubble as we pull away and go on dancing to Prince. 

An art academy bathroom mirror, we look nothing alike, except for the shape of our eyes.

The smell of warm hair feels intoxicatingly calming in a cold park.

Hands moving in the dark, we weave something invisible together. I feel human.

The other touches feel like surgical metal against a painful tumor. I lie there like an alien on a dissecting table.

-

I hear "junge Frau" before I realise the woman ahead motions me to jump the line. I feel unsafe and respond with "danke schon, aber ich bin keine Frau". It felt nice to be seen in such a way, way too nice, and nice things are overwhelmingly scary.

I wait for him to come and stop the painful ordeal. I am drunk and want to sleep, but I act like I enjoy it. I knew I could say "no" and we wouldn't do it, but I felt my "no's" were limited and I needed somewhere to sleep.

-

I insert a bigger septum, like insect pincers, and shave my eyebrows. It’s a mask and it frees my body language. I hug a pillow and pose in front of the mirror, like the Birth of Venus, my face is still puffy from sleep and it looks so right.

2015

I stood up against rude grownups on a bus and my nervous system is shutting down. I lie down for an anxiety nap. It's cold, but I only have the energy to cover myself with a hoodie.

2017

The space is like a bath, a giant drain with smooth walls and smooth corners. I'm dressed in wrinkly nitrile. I lie down, I want to take all of this room in.

Dissected human bodies integrated as circuits, corpses operating heavy machinery, their rigid thudding steps all over the corridors, 

Hospital floor is a morgue city. The public announcement voice squeezes my brain.

I am a robot made of lard..

Glimpse into a gym with muscle men. The machines are torture racks and the bodies are dissected, I convulse out of sleep.

Distant red lights against deep blue concrete.

2018 

My head is dizzy from cigarettes and walking up and down the stairs.

A friend leans in to ask: “so, are you a boy or a girl?”

“I’d like to avoid categories right now” of course I know the answer, but it’s too overwhelming.

-“But how should I perceive you?”

-

He tells me I really do have huge feet.

He talks about how he’s afraid of emotionally messing me up.

I really don’t care about him and can’t help laughing, it is a new feeling and it’s fun.

2021

It’s February, I’m in a soft spacious hoodie. I carry the box with Misha’s food cradling it in my hands, the edges gently brush against my breast buds. My body doesn’t threaten me anymore.

-

The lights go out and I’m losing breath. I wake up hyperventilating.

-

Butterflies push out of my throat, I’m aching and it’s like a dance.