Coffee Crumbs

My Siberia

First place winner of Poetry to
Prose Contest, written
by Alvin767

My Siberia

Some say home is where the heart is. How can that be true when my heart is here beating thud, thud, thud in this cramped, stinking little Detroit apartment when my home is thousands of miles across oceans and rivers and lakes, a little patch of land in Southern Siberia on the brink of the Eurasian Steppe. I can still see those wide sweeping grasslands stretching farther than the horizon. I can feel the cold winter winds biting my teeth and freezing the moisture in my nose with every breath. I can feel the relentless summer sun crushing me with its mighty freedom, and I can still see Mamochka's mouth creased with smiles, her eyes dancing in her sunburnt face, corners wrinkled from squinting in the sun.

I pull myself from where I am laying on the bed and walk to the window. Streaks of grime and a bird poop obscure my vision of the brick wall of the neighboring building. Suffocating. I open the window allowing the -3 degree Fahrenheit air to sweep over me. I close my eyes and taste Siberia.

6 months later I am biking the Riverfront. At Hart Plaza a frozen family of escaped slaves looks longingly across the river to Canada, to freedom. I also look across the river. Could Canada become Siberia for me too? The City of Windsor gazes back at me tamely, the sun reflecting dully from its stocky buildings. No.

Oops! I've looked to long and crashed into a pedestrian, a young businessman who works in the Renaissance Center taking a break to admire the river. I help him to his feet, find his eyes, find Siberia.

Six months later we are standing side by side before Niagara Falls on our honeymoon. The thundering waters pulse through my veins, make me want to climb into a wooden barrel beside him and leap off a cliff. Spray from the falls covers our bodies in a frosty mist. He complains about the cold. I laugh and let the wind cut through my teeth like a knife. Does he love her like I do? Love my Siberia?

Twice six months later I am searching his eyes again Those vast steppes have an ending after all. I reached the horizon and stepped off the edge of the world in a wooden barrel while Siberia stayed behind. He holds my cold hands in his gloved ones, kisses my frozen fingers with penitential lips. Sorry it didn't work out. Sorry we couldn't do this. He leaves me standing on the crumbling steps of my apartment house, miles away from his bustling world at GM and night clubs and Woodward Avenue gleaming in the night. Standing on the steps I long for the steppes of Russia on the brink of my Siberia.

Six months later I am riding the QLine to my new job. I am speaking Russian under my breath, mumbling a tune Mamochka sang to me. The girl beside me, a Wayne State University hat perched proudly atop her head, inches further away, averting her eyes. I shut my mouth and fan myself with a stray newspaper. I am thinking of the two Siberias I have known. The first I left because I was forced to, because a dead mother cannot care for a little girl. The second I left of my own accord. His cold, sweeping winds pushing me further and further to the edge of the horizon, his eyes daring me to jump over the edge. And so I left that Siberia too.

No matter how many times I leave Siberia, I am pulled back by some invisible string tying me to my mother country. Everywhere I go I seek Siberia, chase the wind and the mighty heat and the hungry wolves prowling the night fields and looking for steppes that really are endless. But every time I find Siberia, every time Siberia finds me, we lose each other.

Her horizons always end too soon, her biting winds never numb my lips enough, her crushing power can never quench my desire for something more. So I leave and Siberia follows. Like a phantom or a shadowy echo from the past Siberia follows. Everywhere I go she finds me, begs with me, haunts me, threatens to desert me. All I can do is wait for winter, open the apartment window, let the savage air stab my teeth, and taste Siberia.