You Like Me, Josie Moraine. You Just

If I Poured All The Lies I Had Told Into The Mississippi, The River Would Rise And Flood The City.

He Threw His Burning Cigarette Onto Our Clean Living Room Floor And Ground It Into The Wood With His Boot. We Were About To Become Cigarettes.

Krasivaya. It Means Beautiful, But With Strength. Unique.

I Looked Down At The Little Pink Face In The Bundle. A Newborn. The Child Had Been Alive Only Minutes But Was Already Considered A Criminal By The Soviets.

My Art Teacher Had Said That If You Breathed Deeply And Imagined Something, You Could Be There. You Could See It, Feel It. During Our Standoffs With The Nkvd, I Learned To Do That. I Clung To My Rusted Dreams During The Times Of Silence. It Was At Gunpoint That I Fell Into Every Hope And Allowed Myself To Wish From The Deepest Part Of My Heart. Komorov Thought He Was Torturing Us. But We Were Escaping Into A Stillness Within Ourselves. We Found Strength There.