OPENING FRAME (HARD)
Let me be absolutely clear:
I do not write essays that reduce anything to “because Russia.”
No. No. No.
I’m not interested in national stereotypes.
I’m interested in mechanisms.
What I’m describing is happening right now — in your world, in your body, in your feed.
Systems don’t need to convince you with logic.
They don’t even need to lie well.
They only need to press the right pain-model at the right moment —
and the crowd will move.
The protest will rise.
The moral certainty will ignite.
You’ve seen it in America too.
Not as “propaganda,” not as “ideology” — but as behavioral ignition.
Look at how the story around Renee Good (killed in Minneapolis during an ICE operation) instantly became a battle over narrative, images, framing, and permission to feel outrage.
This poem is a continuation of my previous piece about a Soviet childhood song — the one that promised “freely breathing.”
This is what came after.
FEAR (poem)
Fear doesn’t arrive
as a scream.
It arrives
as order.
As even voice.
As a clean surface.
As the habit
of not asking extra questions.
Fear doesn’t break the door.
It makes you leave it
slightly open —
and then
forget how to close it.
I grew up in a world
where “good”
always looked suspicious.
If it’s quiet —
it means it’s about to start.
If it’s calm —
it means there’s a trick.
If you feel good —
it means you missed something.
Fear is not “I’m scared.”
Fear is:
I pay in advance.
In kindergarten we sang
about how freely
a human breathes.
I didn’t know the word “freely.”
I knew the word “painfully.”
And my body memorized:
breathing freely
is a risk.
Later I understood:
fear is not an emotion.
Fear is a mode.
It doesn’t need
a gun
or a wall.
It needs one thing only:
that you stop believing
joy
belongs to you.
And then comes the trick.
When life is bad —
fear looks honest.
It shows its face.
But when life is good —
fear becomes beautiful.
It puts on
gratitude.
I wanted to believe.
Not because “truth.”
Not because “a calling.”
Just because living
without an adult
is terrifying.
I saw a church —
stone, gold, silence.
And I liked
what meaning looked like.
I got baptized
not as love —
as warranty.
As if you can
sign the air.
I was, back then,
a grateful fool.
I felt good
and I decided:
they will come for this.
They will ask for this.
They will charge me for this.
So I found
the perfect recipient
for payment:
God.
I said “thank you”
the way people say:
don’t touch me.
That’s how fear
changed costumes.
Yesterday it was
cold in the stomach.
Today
it became prayer.
And this is the most dangerous thing:
when fear
looks
like light.
Many years later
I was in a warm place.
A seaside town.
Winter tourists.
Coffee.
Light faces.
Life like a postcard.
The apartment was paid for
weeks ahead.
Everything was perfect.
And then one February morning
I saw the Beijing Winter Olympics
on the news.
And there was a clown.
Smiling.
Joking.
Waving his hands —
as if deliberately
pulling a bear by the mustache.
And something in me
clicked.
Not thought.
a link.
Twos.
This is not prediction.
This is the body’s memory of patterns.
My body doesn’t calculate.
It recognizes.
I grew up as radar.
I pull links out of reality
not because I know the future —
but because I know
the shape of impact.
I opened the flight page
and saw:
flights getting cancelled
without explanation.
And prices rising
as if air
had become a product.
I didn’t think.
I didn’t “analyze options.”
I simply did
what fear knows how to do:
recognize the signal
before it becomes words.
Buy the ticket.
Leave.
To an airport
I did not plan
to see again
for years.
15.02.2022
The scariest part is:
fear never says “no.”
It says:
be ready.
And you become precise.
Not for life.
For survival.
Fear doesn’t hit.
It kisses.
Like power.
And everyone applauds.
And I still carry this
like a needle in my throat:
If I feel good —
why am I afraid?
FINAL NOTE
The body knows.
But it doesn’t speak in facts.
It doesn’t speak in logic.
It speaks in pauses.
In pattern.
In the sudden certainty of now.
It pulls the link out of the noise —
and points:
here.