A Familiar Stranger

I never, never, never open this door. I pretend it does not exist, and sometimes even believe it. 

But tonight, slowly drifting through my  last on-call evening, looking for a distraction, I came across a pile of papers. 

Poems. In Russian. Written mostly in 1997-1998, in Moscow and Paris.  Written by someone struggling with memory, fear and suffering, attachment and loss. Someone looking for God and gasping for life in the meaningless maze of an after-death. 

Me, actually. These poems are mine. 

I cannot convey how strange it is to read your own words when you have forgotten that they had ever been yours. It is like looking in a mirror and seeing another face. Like meeting someone you faintly know, yet struggle to recognise. Could these images, these rhymes, this meter be really born in my mind?! Was I really living through this? 

In fact I liked most of these poems -- rather well done. She had some undeniable talent, much passion and coherence. There is much rubbish too, of course. But... not bad, on the whole. I could shake hands with this familiar stranger. I feel as if I did, in fact :). I might even go as far as to publish them under my own dear maiden name! 

And now on to bolt the door.