Alexander Skidan (Александр Скидан)

When G. moves into the English language, it’s as if she peels away, like a transfer sheet, from the blurring image of herself, with which, it would seem, she had become related.

The language is transforming, becoming unyielding, drier; commanding little notes of irrepressibility are awakening in it, and forces, attracting and repelling, squeezing into some sort of vacuum.

It’s as if she is moving away and with distance, she is taking possession of herself.

Her mouth has been contracted into a self-sufficient pleonasm.

Locked in an impregnable idiom.

Sealed by the Roman alphabet.

An isolation, passing into boundless estrangement, intoxicates, as it does others - a tiny birthmark or a scar on the shoulder blade.

Or the slight asymmetry of features.

I fetishize the voice.

Its trunk descends with roots, into the deep of the throat, the whirlpool of the esophagus, the bread of the stomach, into the Babylonian manger of debauchery, where you can drown with such abandon.

And, every time, I assimilate it more and more.
Bewitching intimacy.

Just say it.

She gives me pleasure – with her tongue, in which I barely manage to keep up with her, feeling, as if I am turning into a foreigner to my very self.

Translate.

More and more often this pleasure begins to cause pain.

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(what a horrifying dream...and yes, very kafkian. it seems to me to have so much to do with the power of language – you pronounce yourself guilty, you are pronounced to be arrested – your confinement is in word only – you can leave but you choose to stay. the source of your guilt (hashish) is simultaneously symbolic of home (the keys). you want to write a novel but remember that you are in russia – you can escape to new york, but you lack the "keys" to get in. and so you live below ground, in a small civilization, a sub(way) culture – where life with its movements and celebrations goes on.

strange, but not so strange...)

Wenn J. ins Englische wechselt, überträgt sie sich buchstäblich, wie
eine Durchschrift, von der eigenen verschwimmenden Gestalt, in
der sie sich, möchte man meinen, eingelebt hat.

Die Rede wandelt sich, wird unnachgiebiger, trockener; gebieterische
Töne von Zügellosigkeit erklingen darin, anziehende und abstoßende
Kräfte, die in irgendein Vakuum drängen.

Sie scheint sich zu entfernen und aus dieser Distanz heraus beherrscht sie sich.

Den Mund gefügt zu einem selbstgenügsamen Pleonasmus.

Geschlossen zu einem unnahbaren Idiom.

Versiegelt mit lateinischer Schrift.

Geschlossenheit, die in unermessliche Fremdheit wechselt, berauscht genauso, wie andere ein winziges Muttermal oder eine Narbe auf dem Schulterblatt.

Oder leichte Asymmetrie der Züge.

Ich fetischisiere die Stimme.

Ihrem Stamm wachsen Wurzeln nach unten, in den Abgrund der Kehle, den Sog der Speiseröhre, den Bauchstall, in babylonische Krippen der Hurerei, wo das Ertrinken hemmungslos ist.

Dabei nähere ich mich ihr immer mehr an.
Hypnotisierende Verbundenheit.

Just say it.

Sie bereitet mir Vergnügen – mit fremden Zungen, denen ich kaum hinterher komme, bemerke wie ich mir selbst Fremdland werde.

Übersetz doch.

Dieses Vergnügen fängt an, immer häufiger schmerzhaft zu werden.


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(what a horrifying dream...and yes, very kafkian. it seems to me to have so much to do with the power of language – you pronounce yourself guilty, you are pronounced to be arrested – your confinement is in word only – you can leave but you choose to stay. the source of your guilt (hashish) is simultaneously symbolic of home (the keys). you want to write a novel but remember that you are in russia – you can escape to new york, but you lack the "keys" to get in. and so you live below ground, in a small civilization, a sub(way) culture – where life with its movements and celebrations goes on.

strange, but not so strange...)