Look at the Harlequins!

Killing A.

2011-11-14T01:31:00.001+01:00

All I've been doing this entire day is thinking about two characters that don't even exist. When you (alas, so falsely) believe you're some kind of a writer, you don't really spend that much time at the keyboard. You spend your time walking around, thinking about the possibilities, about specific mannerisms, dialects, should he be listening to Bob Dylan, artistically justified deaths, possible childhood pets, everything. It's excruciating. That's how M. was born today. A freaky, tiny little woman obsessed with WWII. She's gotta be phlegmatic. She's consistent, but a bit shy about her consistency. She's observant, but can also be intruding in a passive-aggressive way. She likes putting things together. She likes The Smiths. When something unexpected occurs, she's frozen. I think she likes trees. She should. It was different with A. I had him right from the beginning. He likes that Joy Division song. He doesn't understand modern activists and movements. He hates marketing. He loves the old market. He'd tried reading Nietzsche but failed numerous times.

I usually hate my characters. I find them pretentious and exhausting. I wish I could be cruel enough to steal personalities from my friends and acquaintances. It would be easier. This way I just eat an entire bar of chocolate trying to picture somebody's hands. The way they move. She should have short nails. Occasionally colored. He should have tranquil hands. Like a body-artist.

*

Sometimes I go to that building. The one that my character is supposed to jump off. I climb up the stairs imagining his feet, his breath, his thoughts. I get to the roof and everything is so quiet. I look down. I see him approaching the line.

(You can never count on a living writer when it comes to suicide descriptions. That's the catch. No matter how well you describe it, it would always miss that single touch, the force of recognition -- the print of experience.)

I blossomed all over you, but it isn't me anymore.

2011-10-13T01:30:00.000+02:00

We're all little islands.

Sometimes the leaves and flowers from our own island fly away carrying tiny seeds further from our soil. And then there's this lonesome, fragile part of us growing on some other island. We feel connected. We've exchanged our bits. For a moment we mistakenly believe that we're a small part of something bigger, some strange connection, a vibrant relation. And it's a nice feeling. But let's face it. There is no real connection. It's just a piece of our land living somewhere else, never to return. A trifling little plant we would, eventually, forget about.

I'm still an island. I always will be. Small parts of you may be blooming all around my surface, still. But they have nothing to do with you anymore.

Connections are illusory. Misleading. Deceptive.

my pretty girl.

2011-09-27T22:37:00.001+02:00

When I was five my Dad made me look at the camera and say that Croats were bad people. Today, when I look at this ridiculous footage, I laugh at my asymmetrical bangs, the way I spoke with my mouth full, the way my brother was tired and wanted to go to bed while I insisted on being filmed. Everybody was bad back then. Everybody who wasn't "us". The Croats. The Muslims. The Americans. The British... I kept taking spoonfuls of crushed cookies with milk, saying "Ustashe are evil... you know? They're from Croatia." It was the year I learned how to make ice-snowballs and throw them at the pretty ladies walking by. My brother taught me how to stay undercover and make sure no one notices me.

I met a girl. A girl with "a Muslim surname". A Bosniak. She has asymmetrical bangs and speaks with her mouth full. She's one of the prettiest things I've ever witnessed in my existence. She is a radical activist and it annoys me. She screams during protests and carries insulting signs. She's going to the Belgrade Pride Parade this October. She is going to scream again. Somebody is going to yell at her, throw rocks at her, push her, maybe even hit her. She says she doesn't care. She says she has to go.

I'm not going. I'm a coward. I can't afford to be beaten up right now. She probably thinks I'm a hypocrite. I guess I am.

Late at night, she sends me YouTube links of pretty songs. We admire Eva Green together. We never talk too much. We're not friends. I guess we have a little crush on each other. But we're not friends.

We live in the same country. We hate the same things. Still... I'm somebody else. I'm the girl who made a nationalistic footage at the age of five. I'm a regular girly girl. I wear dresses and fuck boys.

I could've been her. I could've had a Muslim name. I could've shouted at the Parade. I could've been free. It's the little things. They turn you into somebody else's daughter. They transform you and construct you. You're never pure again.

a black hole.

2011-09-03T15:10:00.000+02:00

The metro station in Moscow, years ago. All those faces. All those trains. So fast.

Imagine the sounds.

The terrifying fracture down there where the empty tracks crawl into darkness.

The train is coming.

I approach the line.

I smile.

If I jump now, there would be no time to get me out of there.

The train. (Осторожны. Двери закрываются.) The train passes by. Furiously. Frrrrrrrrrrrrgh.

I stand silent.

Trembling.

*

I thought of Andrea. Our shared experience of almost killing ourselves. She was driving. We were too drunk. There were empty bottles all around her car. I made her drink. I knew how much liqueur she'd had. I was there when she took it. I never stopped her. The police took us to the hospital. Me and my ex. They told us they were amazed to see anyone had made it, after having seen what had happened to the car. She was there, sitting on the bed, giving information to the officer. We exchanged a quick glance. It said This was too much, too far. After that we stopped talking to each other. Nobody was angry or anything. We just couldn't stand the thought of confrontation. She felt guilty for driving so fast in such a condition. I felt guilty for not saying it was my fault as well. We reconciled some time after the accident. But it was already a different friendship.

Why did I let her drive that night?

I don't know.

*

The bus leaves either early in the morning, or late at night. The road is long and stretched between the different parts of me. Sometimes the bus swings a bit when taking a turn. Old ladies scream. Children reach for their mothers. Teenagers laugh. I stay silent. Trembling, again. Thinking. Thinking. I'm not afraid of the accident.

I'm afraid of my lack of fear. Of Thanatos holding my hand so gently, caressing my shoulder... the back of my neck. It seems so easy. I'm afraid of my own feet sometimes. Of Andrea's eyes in that hospital. Of my desire to jump into the black hole of Moscow.

I don't know why.

-- You can turn the city upside down, like an umbrella, but it won't keep you dry. --

grandpa's magic scissors.

2011-08-20T23:05:00.001+02:00

- For a couple of days now I've been quite occupied... Doing inventory.

- Of what? - I ask him, puzzled. My Grandpa has the smallest collection of "earthly goods" I've ever witnessed. He owns a bike and an old dog. He believes that people should never have more than they need.

("Look at this house. I hate the second floor. I never use it. Senka and I live downstairs. We're too old to go up and down the stairs every day. And she keeps telling me to dust the goddamn rooms. It's so annoying. The only function of all that space upstairs is to get dusty. I'm tellin' ya, if only I had some magic scissors... I'd chop the upper floor right off of my own house. No more dusting.")

He points at his empty fildžan (a tiny, handleless coffee mug). I pour some more. He drinks these small amounts of coffee one after another. My role is to keep it coming since his right hand's been disabled ever since the hunting accident.

- I'm 77. I'm doing life inventory.

- What's that?

- I'm organizing memories. There are those I'm ashamed of. Those I'm proud of. Those I regret not having... But the worst ones are those I wish I'd had more than once. Just one more time.

- Isn't that utterly pointless?

- Yes - he laughs at my brutal remark - it's completely pointless. But it shortens the day.... My mug's empty again, by the way.

As I pour some more, I think of my own memories. Of abandoned, dusty rooms "upstairs". I look down the spacious, colorful backyard where, some 24 years ago, I learnt how to walk. I was barefoot at the moment. Afterwards, they put some sneakers on my little feet and I couldn't do it again. I couldn't walk in shoes.

- There's no point in doing that, Grandpa. That inventory thing. No matter what your memories are, you'll never be satisfied.

- It's funny... At this point in my life I have the most amazing, the most rewarding knowledge a man could ever have: I know what it takes to have an extraordinary life. I simply know it. I know what it takes to enjoy one's youth to the fullest. And, yet, in order to get this precious piece of knowledge, you need to do one thing only.

- What is it?

He grins at my impatient question, taking another sip of strong, black coffee.

- You need to grow old.

that woman in the cafe

2011-08-13T00:29:00.001+02:00

She touched the palm of my hand and said:"You are going to be so unhappy, woman. So unhappy." Naturally, she asked for some money in order to explain the nature of my future misery. I asked her to leave. "Please. Just leave me alone." It happened a couple of years ago.

I never stopped to think about her motives. About her own life. About this world in which you need to make people immensely desperate so they would help you, give you some cash, pay attention. She didn't say somebody would hurt me. She didn't say I would die young. She didn't say something bad would happen to someone I cared about. She said "unhappy".

So I thought to myself... Was it something about me that had made this poor creature choose this word out of so many other frightening expressions? Is that how you scare me?

How could she know that?

I haven't been very sad ever since. I've suffered, naturally, for reasons quite ephemeral, as we all do in our lifetime. Still, I can't say I've been crushed by desperation. And... It's like having this obscure, ridiculous prophecy hanging over your head. Thinking, thinking, thinking... Every single time...

Is this what she was talking about? Is this going to be it?

space shuttle.

2011-08-04T00:59:00.000+02:00

The way we fight because I'm an impulsive child. Because you corrected something I'd said. Because you slapped my ass in public.

The way we start laughing together. To words. To people's faces. To this ridiculous world surrounding us. Spilling soup from our spoons.

The way you touch me under my dress and I blush... and look around... and feel relieved - we're safe.

The way I sit, recklessly, on your lap, singing old songs... open the doooor, Richard... your hands on my thighs; it's going to rain.

The way the warm palms of your hands wake me up in the morning, soft on my back, stopping, asking, exploring.

The way that old Gypsy lady stared at us, with a distant grin on her wrinkled face, as if affection were the rarest vision in that quiet town.

A space shuttle.

dancing. dancing.

2011-08-01T23:52:00.000+02:00

Today I saw a young mother brushing her five-year-old son's perfect hair. They were in the bus with me. He was all dressed up, like a little schoolboy, in a perfect white shirt, immaculately ironed trousers, shiny little shoes. Her own hair was very dirty and messy, unsuccessfully collected into a ponytail bump. But she didn't care about it. And it made me feel angry. Disgusted. Confused.

I left a beautiful dress in Sarajevo. A black dotted dress with a pink ribbon. I left it on a hanger in a small room. I realized that as I was watching the filthy mother. I never even put it on while I was there, not once. It just kept hanging. I'll be back in September and it will be there, waiting for me.

Only, by that time, there will be no point in wearing it. Its classic beauty will be wasted on nameless passersby and neglected sidewalks. The beholder will be absent this time. The one who knows how to stare. But it's OK. And the dress will be just fine. It's an old dress. She's been through worse.

I found this photograph on the internet. It's a shot of a little girl dancing in the Gloucester Cathedral:

The photograph made me think of the steps we take in our lives and where they end up taking us. It's extraordinary how fragile these little destinies are. A tiny, almost invisible discrepancy in the path and your destination is altered from the ground. We never know. But we keep going.
Some people walk.
Some people run.
And some stop for a minute to dance in a cathedral.

buildings. faces. homes.

2011-06-29T22:41:00.000+02:00

A few minutes ago I left my apartment to take the garbage out. I love wearing my summer shoes on a chilly night. Walking by some buildings, someone else's homes. Some people were having a very marriage-like fight. Some guy was sitting alone in his room, staring at his computer. Some folks were dancing, maybe it was a party or something... A nice-looking guy walked right by me. He didn't really notice me, but that was OK. I liked his ass. When I got rid of my burden, I walked back home. lol "Home". There were some people dancing. There was the guy at his computer. There was the grumpy couple. People. Homes.

This is a new apartment. I haven't even taken my stuff out of my bag. It's there. It looks better in a bag than on a shelf. I have a fancy red kitchen and a big bed and that posh machine... you know... for running around miles and miles "in the coziness of your own home". lol "Home". In the morning I talk to the cleaning lady. She takes care of the building. She thinks I'm nice. In the afternoon I read. (Watch TV.) In the evening I make some dinner and I speed-walk on my fancy machine. I have to be attached to it by this magnet on a wire, in case I fall down. It looks ridiculous.

Going in. Going out. Running. Running. Running. "In the coziness of your own home."

I wish I could just go somewhere where I don't speak the language, need to have a map nearby all the time and have trouble pronouncing people's names. I'd like that.

Down the Rabbit Hole... or M. E. C.

2011-06-23T15:17:00.000+02:00

(major existential crisis)

This morning I woke up melting. Both literally and figuratively. I remembered what the Doorknob had said to Alice:

Read the directions and directly you will be directed in the right direction.

I'm one of those people who need signs. I'm too clumsy and chaotic and impulsive to make my own. And I always seem to think that the scary path through the forest looks pretty. Which is just plain stupid. Have you seen today's forests? They're full of garbage and psychopaths.

I have no idea what I'm going to do next month. Let's be frank - next week. I have no certainty concerning any of the "major" life decisions. Job. Crib. Reproduction.

All along the way they teach us what NORMAL is and how we are supposed to seek this NORMAL and keep going until we reach it. But how do you keep walking towards this imaginary, foreign (boring...) abstraction of someone else's mind when there are all these amazing, provokingly beautiful paths all around? (I'm doomed. I'm aware of that. But the Universe is about to crash anyway, right? Screw "major" life decisions.)

There is no "normal". We're all mad here.

P.S. You see... some people go jump off a building. Some take pills. Some have kids and then molest them. While others, like myself, write a blog about it.

Wake up, Penelope. It's your turn to hit the road.

2011-06-16T19:02:00.000+02:00

I crave. Not you, not him, not them. I crave distant worlds. Or, perhaps, I just keep dismissing the one I'm so easily given.

I have an old suitcase from the 30's. My Grandma gave it to me. It's red and barely usable. It smells like filthy buses. Borders. Passports. My mind. It's almost July. The suitcase is calling me. Like an abandoned lover. Provokingly.

When I was a kid, I could see hundreds of refugees crawling through the only street in my village. Me and my brother, we would paste our noses to the window glass and observe those silent creatures, without saying a word. Nameless people, nameless faces, walking, riding, driving. Nameless kids with messy hair and tired eyes. I turned around and saw my Grandma standing in the kitchen, making cheese pie.

- Grandma? Can we go with them?

*

I crave the signs by the road. The trees passing me by. Desolate fields. Forgotten buildings.

All my life I've been going away. All my life I've been returning.
Now I want to do it once again. Only without that second part.

Starting with Cuba, por supuesto :)

they look at you and see the coast... you make 'em wanna jump, kiddo

2011-06-13T19:31:00.001+02:00

I killed a fly in an old cafe in Vienna. A young man walked by and grinned. "There goes another life I could've had." Took a sip of strong, black coffee. It's a weird city. Or is it just me? (It's me.)

I was supposed to go back home.

(Screw "home". Home's any place where you feel you can walk naked and be comfortable.)

I didn't go back.

My stolen day started with 1. ordering juice in Spanish, 2. flirting with a Japanese girl on the subway and 3. Paul Klee. It ended with kissing a poet. Looking back at it, it was a proper day. A good one. International. Magnifique.

I always travel light. A few books. A skirt. A toothbrush. I crave the road so much that I most commonly forget all the essential things one should pack. I blame Kerouac whenever I forget my phone charger.

On my way to Vienna I didn't manage to meet Ethan Hawke and make love in a park. I played with a 6-year-old bilingual kid and her Barbie mermaid. For some reason, she liked me and insisted to sit next to me on the bus.

"Oh, look... Ken is trying to kiss Barbie!"

"Listen, kid. This is ridiculous. Plus, she has no legs."

"But what are we going to do?"

"We can invent stories."

"Like Peter Pan and Captain Hook?"

"Like you and me and mermaids and buses."

"You go first!"

Later on, an old man in a suit openly flirted with me in front of Schiele's self portrait.

Later on, I fell in love with a young girl in a wheelchair. We were both looking at Klimt's Medicine.

Later on, a handsome young man winked at me, mistakenly taking my grin for himself, even though it was actually for Goethe.

Later on, an old lady ran straight through the room full of Monet.

Have I mentioned I kissed a poet? Quite a few times?

When I woke up, my stolen days were over. I looked through the window at a young Gypsy folding her dresses. I thought of Emerson. Children are all foreigners.

The balmy wind scratched my cheeks. The road is calling yet again. To me, dearest William, that is the music of spheres. Gotta go. I've got a ticket to ride.

water rush

2011-06-02T13:02:00.000+02:00

I feel like going to the beach.

Some time in the evening, when the sun's low and there's almost nobody around.

(And you don't have to shave.)

I would bring a bottle of wine and a scrapbook.

I would draw a sketch of myself sitting by the water drawing a sketch of myself.

I would listen to Ella Fitzgerald and perhaps sing a little bit.

If there's no one around.

I would get utterly wasted.

(I love saying "utterly wasted", it's Brit-sexy.)

I would expose my legs to salty air and convince myself I look hot.

I wouldn't swim. It's depressing to swim when you're alone.

It's so Virginia Woolf.

When it's too late and I feel my ass is full of sand, I'd go home.

I'd leave the sketch of myself sitting by the water drawing a sketch of myself.

(If there were no borders in this ridiculous world we could all say:

"My country has a seacoast."

We're dumb.)*

*This is not a poem, it's a piece of text with central alignment. I don't write poems.

the story of a girl and a cockroach

2011-05-29T21:07:00.000+02:00

I screamed and jumped on the toilet. My whole life flashed before my eyes. In three months I would be 25, unemployed (still), doing school stuff (still), living with my Mom (still), being afraid of insects (since around three or four, when my parents' fear patterns reflected on my innocent and brave child behavior), figuring out who I actually am and what I actually wanna be (big still) and, let's face it, carrying around a HUGE emotional baggage and commitment issues. (Plus Daddy issues, naturally.)

Yes, it happened while I was standing on my toilet seat, terrified of a single cockroach.

I couldn't face my bedroom, since the cockroach ran into it, afraid of me, so I closed the door and went to the living-room. Since I was aware of the fact that there's this gross creature hanging around, I didn't sleep at all. Literally, I was just sitting there watching dumb comedy shows. Things going through my head............

You're 25... You're scared of cockroaches.

You're spending a horrible, sleepless Friday night in a room without clean clothes and pillows and bedsheets because of.... a cockroach.

You are a dumbass who cannot handle a small insect.

The small insect is a genius having a blast in your bedroom, walking around a soft bed... soft bedsheets...

1am

You want to live alone, on your own and... you're afraid of cockroaches.

You'd rather have no sleep whatsoever than face a cockroach.

Should I get a boyfriend and a serious relationship? (yuck)

2am

Is there any icecream left in the fridge?

4am

Boyfriend No1: would scream, push me away to jump on the toilet seat himself and then later on pretend he had killed the cockroach while I wasn't looking so his am-I-gay-or-not issues wouldn't be that obvious to me

Boyfriend No2: would crush the creature with his big foot, turn to me with a who's-your-Daddy smile and make a dumb, not-at-all-funny sexist remark

Boyfriend No3: would look at me with his stoned-as-hell expression, let the cockroach run away, saying "Go, you innocent, little Earth creature... Live the life you deserved to have... " and would then give me the speech of how modern life has alienated us from Mother Nature

Boyfriend No4: wouldn't even hear me screaming cuz he's wearing big headphones, recording another "masterpiece" guitar music that I would hate but pretend to like

Boyfriend No5: would kill the cockroach with a magazine and then afterwards bring it up during sex

And so on and so on and so on... (OK! Don't judge me!)

.................

7am

OK, this is ridiculous.

I went out and bought a bug spray. I sprayed every corner of the house and continued with my life.

Next morning I found the cockroach, dead on my bathroom floor, upside down. Yeah, I was pretty proud of myself. I even did that whole sing-a-song-about-it-in-your-Johnny Cash-voice. I don't know if its life flashed before its eyes. I don't really care. I called my friend to brag about handling my own cockroach business like a hero. He mocked me for calling myself a Buddhist.

I went for a walk afterwards. Big smile, firm steps. I kill my own cockroaches now, thankyouverymuch.

"I fear those big words, Stephen said, which make us so unhappy."

2011-05-14T01:17:00.001+02:00

From my favorite short story:

"A few light taps upon the pane made him turn to the window. It had begun to snow again. He watched sleepily the flakes, silver and dark, falling obliquely against the lamplight. The time had come for him to set out on his journey westward. Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling on every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless hills, falling softly upon the Bog of Allen and, farther westward, softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves. It was falling, too, upon every part of the lonely churchyard on the hill where Michael Furey lay buried. It lay thickly drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the little gate, on the barren thorns. His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead." (The Dead, from The Dubliners)

Read Joyce. Even though: "Writing in English is the most ingenious torture ever devised for sins committed in previous lives. The English reading public explains the reason why."

And then a video that has nothing to do with the text, but it feels right, and it's not exactly the best night ever, so... screw it.

I wanted to write about death and serious shit, but then I thought.. nah.

2011-05-09T01:20:00.001+02:00

Grandpa taught me how to catch pigeons. I never really did it. I just enjoyed making traps.
When it was my turn to learn how to ride a bike, Grandpa had an accident. He went hunting that morning and he shot himself in the right arm.
I might be a girl that cannot ride a bike, but I sure can catch some goddamn pigeons.

Then, I moved to a shitty town and had to decide between piano lessons and dancing. I took the first one and ended up with ugly legs. I met Chopin instead of hot guys. Which inevitably leads to a premature sexual frustration. I could've been a hot dancer. My whole life would've been different. Fucking childhood decisions.

I do dance occasionally. Sometimes when I'm really drunk. Sometimes to Chopin.

Then you approach 25 and people start asking you what you're gonna be when you grow up. I tell them I'll write fiction and have a lot of sex.

Yeah, but what are you going to do for a living?

Inhale oxygen, you stupid prick.

People are exhausting. If I were a dancer, I'd dance only for myself. And I'd dress like a hooker. Just for the sake of it.

It is 1am. I ate three baked apples with honey and cinnamon. My hair is dirty and I pee every ten minutes. It's Monday tomorrow. That fact changes everything. Makes people ask you what you're gonna be when you grow up.

Well, people. I'm not growing up. I quit that activity when I was fourteen.

the railway boy

2011-04-21T13:38:00.001+02:00

I thought about that thing M. told me.

He speaks in lyrics. It's a certain type of deformation caused by his tremendous love for music. I've never met M. in my entire life. I've known him for years. He's skinny and laughs like a kid and has messy brown hair. Just like me. He lives by the railway track. The trains pass by and shake his world. He tries to deal with it the best way he can: eats acid every once in a while and listens to his magical music folders. He likes cats and colors. He's sad cause I never got off the train in his little town. (The train stops, I read the name of the town, I think of him, the train waits for me, I do nothing, I look through the window, the train goes on.) He calls me in the middle of the night to ask me if I'm in love. I tell him not to be ridiculous. Love is a shitty French novel. We imitate cartoon voices and talk about my inability to make perfect French toast. He asked me to marry him once. I asked him to quit drugs. We both said no. He reminds me of life. Of lightness. Of laughter. Of running away. Of getting back on the road. Of freedom. Of being young forever. All that indie crap.

I thought about that thing M. told me.

"Someday baby, when you settle down, with some bullshit husband in some bullshit town... will you think of me? ...you can hide in your books when your life gets too hard, but you can't mend the heart with a library card."

All My Babel Lovers

2011-04-16T18:27:00.003+02:00

Verlassen sind wir doch wie verirrte Kinder im Walde. (Kafka)

This is one of the first things I learned to say in German. We are as forlorn as children lost in the woods. I don't speak German, really. The only things I know how to say are:

1. I am.
2. You are.
3. I wish I were falling asleep next to you.
4. Tits.
5. I cannot cook.
6. We are as forlorn as children lost in the woods.

It's just so me to learn six absolutely useless sentences in an important European language. I guess, for some reason, I tend to get romantic with my German. (Though, somehow, no matter what I say, I sound like a Nazi pornstar.)

I'm glad my Kafka fascination was over by the age of 20. Otherwise, I'd probably be floating dead in Danube right now, or develop a severe case of antidepressant addiction. But thank you, Franz, for a little piece of German. At least you taught me how to suffer in an aesthetically legitimate way.

The only thing I know how to say in French is a two-line part from a Serge's song.

- je vais, je vais et je viens
entre tes reins -

The porn-saga, therefore, continues in another EU lingua.

I have a really cool friend from Paris. She tried to teach me some French. We ended up drinking a bottle of wine, speaking about love and misplacement and belonging. In English.

Further more, I think it's painful to listen to any man speak French after having heard the sublime eroticism of Gainsbourg's voice. Serge taught me how to provoke and provide passion. I know, it's so cheap. But passion, after all, isn't supposed to be expensive.

Pablo Neruda

My Spanish is quite good, actually. I have nobody to practice it with. I forgot how to write in Spanish. But the words still jump around my head like little flamenco dancers, whispering quotations of my favorite Spanish speaking poet. Juegas todos los días con la luz del universo...

You play each day with the light of the universe.
Subtle visitor, you arrive in the flower and water.
You are more than this little white head I clasp,
clustered between my hands each day.

(It sounds different in English. People should never read translated poems. People should read poetry surrounded by dictionaries, mythologies and lovers.)

Here's an example:
S: Quiero hacer contigo lo que la primavera hace con los cerezos.
E: I wish to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees.

This is the only Pablo I've ever loved. I've loved him more than the other two. Pablo never taught me anything useful. He was just, simply, there. Especially when I was hammered. Or on antidepressants. It can be helpful. Learning Spanish during profound hangovers.

(I always leave some room for English. The colonial bastard I love so much. But, although I'd definitely go with Joyce on this one, I'm gonna do it some other time in a special post dedicated to Jim only. He's a self-centered Irishman. I cannot risk it.)

I remember the day I first heard Ian's voice. It was a sunny Bosnian afternoon, with a smell of dog shit in the air and the sound of the local mosque breaking through the walls of my room. And then... love tore me apart. Again. And again. And again.

I remember thinking: if they played his songs in the local mosque, I'd be there on my bloody knees every single day.

I can now see everything falling to pieces before my eyes.

Of course I'm gonna end this Babel saga with Him. He was my first lover, after all, though he was a nasty old bastard, to be honest. I read him in English, he wrote most of his masterpieces in English, but it's that Russian atmosphere he so magically incorporates into English syntax that I love about him.

When you fall in love with an old man who runs around chasing butterflies, your destiny is pretty much set after that.

Vladimir Nabokov

P.S. (Я хочу быть твоей маленькой бабочки.)

the one thing I have no words for

2011-03-25T22:50:00.000+01:00

I belong nowhere. I belong everywhere.

*

They say home is where your heart is. What if you lose your heart on the way?

I don't have a town I can call my own. I was born in a different era. The city I was born in is no longer the same. It's the city of pretty houses and cool festivals. It hasn't been mine for almost twenty years. Sometimes we run into each other. We say Hello. We behave. We're just common strangers. Somebody didn't want me in that city. It's the name. In the Balkans, your name can change the entire course of your life. Zagreb and I are nothing more than cute strangers winking to one another in the bus, aware that we would never be more than that - random passersby. In Zagreb, they called me Serbian.

The town I grew up in will never be my own. It's the town of small nationalists and big promises. It's a land where just saying the name of the country you live in can get you into trouble. It's a land of differences that can kill you. It's a land of similarities that can save you. It's Bosnia and it's fucked up. Like a boiling pot full of antagonized ingredients. When we moved to Banja Luka, we were "the new ones". The odd ones. The mixed-up ones. For me, it's set. I'll always feel that way. Like the odd one. In Banja Luka, they called me Croatian.

The city I live in right now does not feel like my own. I've spent my entire life listening to how this country, this big, shady Serbia is the land my roots are from. I've imagined it in my head whenever I felt like I didn't belong somewhere. I thought to myself - my home is there, it's where I should be going. And now that I'm here, in this enormous, cold city, I'm the other one, again. All those stories, all those promises, gone in a second, with dust evaporating from the sidewalks, strangers glancing at me whenever I speak. The roots have vanished in the process, somehow, they got so mixed together that I can no longer see their beginning. In Belgrade, they call me Bosnian.

People would usually ask me - what do you feel like? It's the way we organized this world, it's simply not good enough for me. I'm custom made. I'm unique. I belong everywhere. I am all the sidewalks and rooftops of Zagreb in the eighties where my parents took long walks and snapshots of each other. I am Sofija, my great grandmother, who could run fast enough through the forests, away from the Nazis chasing her. I am my grandfather, who managed to escape from a death camp at age 11, thanks to kindness of a single soldier. I am the great, big world turning around on my mini school globe in my room at two in the morning, as I wake up to that dreadful sound, fleeing my bedroom. I am all the dead poets buried in Belgrade, all the music that those old violins make through the streets, the smell of fresh bread, newspapers, traffic. I am a small cafe in Rome, nearby Pantheon. I am the look from Nevski prospekt, that once stole my breath away, sometime during a long, cold winter in St. Petersburg. I am the Frankfurt airport and all the amazing people that pass you by in a single hour if you sit on that one spot.

But, most of all, I am the old sound of sevdah music, coming quietly from a local kafana, crawling through the streets among churches, cathedrals, mosques, dressing a single town into one color, at least for a couple of minutes, pretending, in a flash of a moment, that there is a unique soul in this devastated, torn-apart land, full of hatred, of faults never to be forgiven, of differences never to be abridged, one soul for all us messy kids waking up in the middle of the night, sitting in cold basements because of some distant, grownups' war outside, craving different worlds, far from that frightening place, where there's always music on the streets, where there's as much ice cream as you can eat, where the only name you need is the one that can fit light to the palm of your hand and the tongue of the world.

Hallelujah!

2011-03-14T15:43:00.000+01:00

When I was a kid I believed in lots of stuff. Like... Santa, ghosts, magic, bunch of Saints from my Grandma's calendars, spells you whisper during gym class so that the pretty blonde girl would fall and break a leg... So, this one time I was watching a religious TV movie about Jesus, it was a part of the Christmas program, and I had a huge crush on the guy. (The muscular actor with greasy hair.) I was a kid and there was this young, handsome smart-ass that everybody listened to. (How disturbed you need to be as a kid to have a crush on Jesus?)

But, nowadays, I pretty much don't believe in anything. At least not those things I mentioned. I don't know what happened to me. I do read a lot of Buddhist literature, but I cannot say that I believe in reincarnation. I went to... some kind of a Church once, while I was in Norway, but only because I heard a rock band playing and thought it was a gig. (Imagine my surprise when I found out that the audience was this bunch of LSD-looking fellas and the chorus was: "Jesus, Jesus, Jesus".) I was even baptized in a nice, ancient Orthodox monastery, but only to please my Dad and get free bottles of homemade wine. (It's horrible, I know.) When my best friend got married, I was her maid of honor, and as we stood in the church, holding candles, the priest started telling them what they were supposed to do now that they were a married couple, and I fell unconscious. In front of one hundred people. I fell down like a dead tree. (Some old guy approached me afterwards and offered to sell me some "holy water" because, in his opinion, there was something deeply wrong about me and "the spirits expelled me" by knocking me down unconscious.) It's a church, man, not a fight club!

Maybe there is something deeply wrong with me. Even if Jesus himself appeared in front of me, all dressed up, greasy hair, perfect abs... I still wouldn't believe.

- OK, look, here's my ID and my driver's licence.

- No. I'm sorry. I don't believe you.

- Well... How 'bout I do some magic stuff, ya know... Like... Give me that mp3 player and I'll turn it into fish.

- Why would I want my mp3 player turned into fish, are you insane? Just leave me alone. Bye.

- No, please, wait... I can... I can... I KNOW! Get me a blind person and I'll make him or her see again.

- I don't really hang out with blind people. I think they're depressing.

- But you are such a bad person! You need me!

- Gee, relax... I don't need you. Why would I need you?!

- Well, ya know... To be a better human, loving and caring and stuff?

- Isn't that what Oprah does?

- No! Just because some fat-ass egomaniac makes a talk-show about herself (though I loved that one, ya know, when Tom Cruise started jumping up and down on the couch...) DOES NOT MEAN that you don't need me!

- Jesus, Jesus. Just move on, OK? Let it go. Forget about me.

- But WHAT HAPPENED TO US? You had a huge crush on me! You even talked about me during Sunday school. Your Grandma introduced us!

- I'm sorry. And, by the way, I kind of... read the Buddhists now.

- You're leaving me for some fat zombie wearing orange dresses???

- Well, he's not so needy, and... OK, I gotta go now, really. I'm sorry.

- But... but... The fish... and... blind people... and...

- I'm sorry, Jesus. It's not you, it's me.

- Bitch.

Fragile

2011-03-08T01:23:00.003+01:00

When I was a teenager, I helped a friend of mine move. We were carrying all these boxes into her room, and all of the sudden she said: "I hate those "fragile" signs you put on things when you need to... you know... handle them."
"Why's that?"
"Well... They just make me feel more nervous, you know? And, in some weird way, it makes me wanna break the damn thing. Like the sign itself is teasing me or something..."

But not me. I always loved those. Because it's so easy. It comes with the caution.

Sometimes I have this crappy, girlish feeling that somebody should have put the same warning on my skin when I was born. Maybe some of us were simply born fragile. Tiny, paper-skin babies, with no "handle with care" post-it pasted to our foreheads. We were just casually thrown into the world's jaws. And we bump into other people, every once in a while, with no precaution instructions coming along. No "fragile" sign.

On the other hand, maybe it's our fragility in the first place what makes others so nervous, so tentative and, therefore, so clumsy. Maybe, on some subconscious, hidden level, we do carry a sign, this thin, transparent note saying "Fragile, handle with care". People can sense that. And it freaks them out. They get overcautious and timorous. And they break us. Unintentionally. We're accidentally broken. And we know it's not their fault. It's the "fragile" sign. It makes people break you.

His Mara

2011-03-06T15:38:00.001+01:00

I had to leave my apartment to eat something. (My fridge is always so empty that I'm thinking about switching it off and turning it into a closet.) So I got out of the building, the freezing air biting my ears, my hair all over the place, flying around my head. It's this city. It makes you feel like a wind instrument, a broken sound resonator, only there's no music. No matter what you're wearing, the wind gets you, sneaking through your pants, dancing over your ribs... Koshava wind. The infamous bastard.

I entered the store, my head automatically counting the money I have and what would be the wisest purchase for this occasion. So I'm standing next to the dairy section, trying to buy the cheapest cheese there is, but still not too cheap to poison myself, and I notice this really old guy staring at me. I try to avoid eye contact, for some disturbed, postmodern-fear reason. But he's standing there, like a statue, staring at me.

- You look just like her.

- Excuse me?

He's freaking me out. I take the first brand of cheese I can reach and walk to the cashier. The guy follows me.

- I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you... You just look like my Mara.

- Your... Mara?

- My wife. She died years ago. You're the spitting image of her.

At that point, I'm guessing he must have been born in the late twenties, which would make his wife... some sixty years older than me... so I was having a hard time picturing a 1950's girl wearing red Converse shoes, denim pants and a leather jacket with a couple of piercings and tattoos on her body.

- Are you sure?

- Oh, yes, young lady, I'm absolutely positive about this. It's like I'm looking at her for the first time, all over again... Thank you for that. Thank you so much.

He says that, smiles mysteriously, winks at me! and then leaves. And the 2011 girl in red Converse shoes, denim pants and a leather jacket keeps standing there with Emmentaler cheese she cannot afford, wondering about this deceased, mysterious woman, this Mara person, her shoes, her hair, her fridge, the way she smelled, the way she talked, the way she kissed this darling little man. "That should've been my life."

I left the store with no cheese, just a snickers bar in my hand, the Koshava messing with my hair again, grabbing my muscles, pinching my skin, going through the resonator, all around, without a single chord. And I remembered this old song, my favorite love song ever: "I'll be seeing you... in all the old familiar places"...

Pablo, love me, I'm drunk again

2011-02-24T02:25:00.003+01:00

It's a skirt. A blue one. I wear it as a dress.

My Mom thinks it's too short that way. She looks at my tiny body and how I lifted the skirt up and says: "That part's supposed to be on your ass." But it's a dress now... Can't you tell?

My ex-lover found it too oldschool and broad. "It's too oldschool and broad", he'd say and go back to watching dumb reality shows. It was a skirt once, can't you tell?

I go to the mirror and try to make it fit. The skirt-dress. I can feel a heavy nimbus floating above my head.
And the skirt-dress looks at the girl in the mirror and rolls its eyes. "She was a little girl once, can't you tell?" And the girl in the mirror frowns so that the little lines around her eyes would appear. Look, I'm a woman now. I have my lines, my artificially provoked wrinkles. Like petite branches on the river surface. But the skirt-dress keeps quiet and ignores the performance.
Nothing seems to fit, it's a comic image. Maybe I should put some make up on and make it more grotesque. A baby girl in her mother's shoes. In her mother's skirt. (But it's a dress now, can't you tell?)

My room is soft and desolate. There are some stones I found by the Adriatic coast and brought it back here to put it on my piano. The piano loves the stones and they're having a little affair. Whenever it plays F-major, the stones make these little fluctuating movements, like careless coquettes, dancing on the surface. So I'm just a player, a person that presses the right keys, those little fragile hammers move inside of my piano and the affair begins. Firmly, but gently. Chord by chord. I'm just their silent messenger.

Pablo Neruda stares at me, piercingly, from the words hanging on my walls, everywhere around that gloomy room.
"I want to find my F major, Pablo... I want the little hammers to move inside of me."
"I am here for you, mi niña pequeña", he whispers from the sheets floating in the air... "I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair. Silent, starving I prowl through the streets.... Deseo comer su piel como una almendra entera..." And I close my eyes and all is peaceful again. No need for skirts. Or chords. Or love.

The Neighbors Are SO Doing It

2011-02-15T16:11:00.002+01:00

I woke up at three in the morning because my fat, squeaky, Martha Stewart neighbor was having an orgasm. At first I thought I was dreaming of kittens brutally lynched. Then my mind started getting a different message and I opened my eyes. So... it began with something that kind of sounded like hiccups (but not normal person's hiccups, more of a... sexually disturbed koala hiccups... not that I've ever seen a sexually disturbed koala, to be honest, but if there were any, they would DEFINITELY sound this way...) Then, the sexually disturbed koala hiccups turned into something like... deep, diaphragm groaning... (imagine the sound of a drunk Viking yodeling).... I guess that must've been the guy disturbing the koala in the first place. THEN! (there's more) they started making these "weeee oh my god weeee oh my god weeee oh my god" simultaneous shrieks... their bed already molesting my ceiling with constant kicking. It felt like being tided to a chair in a church listening to badly tuned gospel music produced by middle age women without teeth. At this point I was already summoning the gods and the goddesses and the natural forces of the Universe to make my neighbors come already and let me sleep. It turned out that my Viking neighbor was an obese, bearded, Balkan version of Don Juan so he continued to torment the poor Martha Stewart for the next hour. After she had FINALLY survived her total gospel climax, it was well after four o'clock, and I got up to fix myself a huge cup of hot chocolate. Since I figured there was no possible way for me to fall asleep again, I played some Blonde Redhead on my computer and opened the Jim Morrison biography which I never seem to bring to an end. After a few songs and the famous story of Jim's "Miami incident", Martha Stewart (I could bet on my life it was her) grabbed her broom (or something similar) and started kicking the floor, shouting "Turn that music down! We're trying to sleep here!" The irony of the situation punched me in the face like a wet sock. So I closed my laptop, closed the book, sat there in the dark with hot chocolate at four in the morning like a moron, staring at the TV I almost never watch, wondering three things:

1. How the hell can somebody be such a manic world class bitch after having this massive, epic-like, gospel orgasm?
2. How the hell is this annoying, pain-in-the-ass housewife having the freaking time of her life, screaming her soul out, while a 24-year-old with no particular personality issues (well...) and an overall pleasant physical appearance spends her nights listening to OTHER people having massive, epic-like, gospel orgasms?
3. How do you kill your neighbors without anyone ever finding out about it?

virgo/f/11

2011-02-05T21:04:00.000+01:00

The first and the last time I've bought anyone a gift for Valentine's Day was back in elementary school. I was eleven. I bought a National Geographic poster that had this big photo of a lion printed on it. The one and only time I'd spoken to the boy I liked he told me his astrological sign was Leo. I didn't really know anything about him but this ridiculous, unimportant piece of information. I started reading horoscope on a daily basis. I would read the Virgo section and then skip to Leo. Sometimes I would find an extra article on horoscope evaluating the possible match of any two signs and a summary of what's to be expected in a relationship of the two. It said that Virgo and Leo have "some chance for domestic harmonizing when leveled". I had no idea what that meant but I sure hoped we would "level" some day. So, when the Love Day finally arrived, I decided to give him this poster. His mother opened the door and called his name. When he appeared in front of me, I just stood there, like a complete idiot, in my overalls and a purple headband, handed him the gift and then turned away and left without saying a single word.

In the next thirteen years I would never buy/receive a Valentine's gift. I would never wear overalls again. I would never read horoscope.

I would, most of the time, keep quiet and unresponsive when a guy I liked approached me. It's like I'm standing on that doorstep, all over again, with a stupid lion poster in my hand symbolizing the three simplest words: I like you.

And then I turn away and leave.

death

2011-01-27T20:30:00.001+01:00

When I was eight, I realized I would die. Eventually, I mean.

I was lying in my bed with my stuffed panda and could see this one, irritatingly bright star, or a satellite maybe... I always thought there was somebody out there, some kind of a scientist, a researcher, who was sitting there on that star, in a crazy little metal box with bunch of computers and stuff... observing us. So, when I was a kid, I waved at him, at the window, from my bed. I felt so sorry for him cause I thought how sad it must be to spend your entire life looking at people down here on Earth without them ever noticing, or even knowing, or looking back at you.

Anyway, during one of those late nights when I couldn't sleep so I just waved at the lonely scientist sitting on a star, I figured how he had to be like immortal or something, so he would be able to see everything the way it was. It made me realize how, eventually, he would see me dying, too. So, a revelation came to my comprehension: I will die and I will no longer exist.

I got up and called my Mom. I was pretty upset. She rushed in from her bedroom and asked me what the matter was.

- Mom, I am going to die.
- What do you mean?
- You know what I mean. I am going to die. You are also going to die. There is nothing we can do about it.
- Oh, you mean some day we would die?
- What does it matter which day it is? We'll be dead.
- Honey, every kid at some point starts thinking about this and I know it's upsetting but it's the way nature functions and it's for the best, probably.
- But it's just so ridiculous. We'll be dead. What's the point then?
- You should go back to sleep and stop thinking about it, you're so very young.
- OK. But it's not gonna make it go away. I'm still dying.

I wasn't satisfied with the answer so I waited my Mom to leave and talked to the scientist sitting on the star.

- Promise me that when I'm dead you will quit your job.
- (-)
- Blink if you promise.
- (the star blinked)
- OK. Thank you. Good night.

average

2011-01-26T22:20:00.000+01:00

When I was a teenager, my father told me I was stupid. (It sounds a little harsher in my mother tongue. Just like everything else.) It was a beautiful day. I can remember everything about it. I'm not really that good at preserving memories (or anything else, for that matter) but I can remember that day as if it were today. I had red highlights in my hair. I wore black clothes. My nails were dark. I read Oscar Wilde and quit tennis. Up till that day I was a straight A student. Until that semester when I somehow ended up with B average. I was so proud of that B. It felt so... mine. I don't wanna sound like a pathetic shit-chic literature, but honestly, it felt so damn good. Like all my A's were for somebody else, and this B average was for me only. Because, for me that B meant that I finally had a life.

I was heading home with my student index all happy and smiling. I knew my Mom wouldn't make a deal out of it. But I couldn't wait to tell Him. And there he was, sitting in the living room with his feet on the table, watching TV. And I said it. Just like that. He stared at me for a moment. His ears turned red. For a second there I thought he was going to explode into pieces and I would have to clean all that mess. And then, he got up and yelled at me. Those words. "You are a stupid girl!" He was so disappointed and I was so proud.

I think I became a giant that day. A great, big giant with great, big steps.

Can you hear me, Mr. Hu?

2011-01-25T15:43:00.000+01:00

I had a dream last night. A profoundly awkward one. I'm in the White House and there are some people in suits chasing me. For some ridiculous reason I'm wearing a suit too and a plastic folder with some very important documents (it's a dream so you never know what it really is, you just feel it's important). So I'm running through the building, like a complete idiot, and all of the sudden I run into the Chinese president, Hu Jintao. And I try to tell him something important, something crucial, but he cannot hear me. He just stands there shaking his head, with a steady look in his eyes, no emotions. It freaks me out, so I wake up.

When I opened my eyes I could see a small Buddha statue next to my TV. And seeing it there, I remembered watching a press conference the other day with presidents Hu and Obama. A young reporter asked the Chinese president about the notion of human rights that seem to be excessively flexible for the Chinese administration. Hu Jintao could not answer the question because of "some problems with the simultaneous translation. He said "I did not hear the question". Another reporter asked the same question and got a polished, diplomatic response. "China is always committed to the protection and promotion of human rights." That's what Hu said.

I thought about Tibet for a moment. About the monks brutally killed. About the importance of naming things. About the word "democracy" stretching to its limits. About the usage of "cultural differences" to justify genocide. And about the importance of a stable international political scene, even if it means closing our eyes and pretending we can't hear the question.

the timer

2011-01-25T01:01:00.000+01:00

Tatsuo Miyajima: Art in You

I was thinking about numbers today. About infinity and how it freaks us out. The universe is like somebody giving you a zero and telling you to start counting up. You ask this person: when do I stop? They don't know. "Just keep counting." And the possibilities just disturb you. You might stop at five. You might stop at five million. You don't have a clue.

Life, on the other hand, is similarly disturbing, but goes in a different direction. You count down. We're all given a number, we can't really say which number it is, but we've all got one. And we know we're counting down. And we're certain... no... we're absolutely positive that we're heading towards a zero. An end. And it's frightening. Scares the crap out of us. But still... It's better than counting forever. Better than all that... eternity shit.

It's like we're all some kind of walking timers. Don't you think?

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street trust

2011-01-24T02:15:00.000+01:00

I tried to help an old lady today. She was just coming out of the market with two giant plastic bags in each hand. Four heavy bags full of vegetables, milk, eggs, and... whatever it is that old people like to buy. So, anyway, I can see she's walking really slowly, heading in my direction, so I speed up my pace and put a hand on her shoulder. And she screams: Leave me! Just leave me alone!

- I thought I could help you with that, Ma'm.

- No! I can carry it myself! Go away!

- But they seem to be quite heavy. And we're walking in the same direction, so I thought I could just...

She stops and looks at me as if I'm the winner of the World's Most Annoying Stranger contest.

- For Christ's sake, just leave me alone! Get away from me! I'm not giving you my stuff!

So I just stood there like an idiot, watching her take her small steps, her hands shaking in cold, carrying too much groceries. I thought to myself: do I really look like somebody who would steal groceries from this old hag?

I felt bad for thinking it and rushed back home. Ten steps before the entrance to my building, I slipped on ice and fell on my ass. The neighbor's dog started barking at me. I just sat there and laughed at myself. At this city.

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4 in the afternoon / breakfast

2011-01-23T00:32:00.000+01:00

Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. : "Simple Girl"

Sometimes you wake up after the rest of the city has already earned their paycheck for the day. It has to do with lots of things: alcohol, boys, hormones, soundtrack, pretty girls, windows. You open your eyes and the world's already there. And you think - screw it, I'm not getting up. Then you have to pee and you think - OK, I'll crawl those two and a half meters to the bathroom and get it done. On your way to the bathroom you see your laptop, still on from last night, with your Music directory screaming at you. You can't help it, you approach the computer and play CocoRosie for no particular reason. While you're peeing in your dark bathroom (the light bulb had died, tragically) you find yourself deeply depressed by the current CocoRosie song, in need to commit suicide with your tweezers (the only thing available) and you need to go back there, immediately, and switch to something else. After the toilet business, you go back to the tiny living room, but the song'd already died out and it's silence again. It's Saturday. You might as well call someone and get drunk again. You might stay in and watch pretty animals killing each other on National Geographic. You might go back to sleep and try your best not to wake up before Sunday night. You realize your options are just sad.

You open Google Translate and type: I need a rich, smart, sexy husband. You translate it into simplified Chinese, Dutch and Belarusian, in case you need to put an ad one day. It goes like this:

Chinese: 我需要一个富有，聪明，性感的丈夫。

Dutch: Ik heb een rijke, slimme, sexy man.

Belarusian: Мне патрэбен багаты, разумны, сэксуальны муж.

You stare at those letters with a big, hollow space in your head. They look ridiculous.

Sometimes there are just too many opportunities. You can go to whatever school you want to. You can listen to whatever music you like. You can consummate whatever kind of food and beverages you'd prefer. You can screw whomever you fancy. You can play whatever card you have. And it bores you to death. So you stay in. You pee, when necessary. You eat one boiled egg for breakfast and a piece of yesterday's pretzel. You crawl back into the bed. And the music starts again, in your head: Você... precisa saber da piscina... da margarina... da Carolina... da gasolina...

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the 2nd pillow

2011-01-21T00:48:00.000+01:00

I have a big bed, just for myself.

At night, I take the right side, though it doesn't really matter which side I pick. There are two pillows and two blankets. Sometimes, there's someone else sleeping on the left side. A friend, a stranger, a nobody. That's why I put an extra pillow. But most of the time, it's just me in my bed.

In the morning, I wake up, and turn to the left. I see empty space, immaculate sheets, the pillow's surface untouched. There's no one there. And somehow, I don't really know how to explain it, I feel relieved. I see this perfect pillow, no head traces, nothing... and it makes me happy. I can fall asleep again. No distractions.

I know it's weird.

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