easter sunday

untitled by Helen Korpak


i'm at work because i don't know what else to do; . _where else to go.
__the house was too quiet, i got scared.


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I've been in this city 3 months. It's not soo too long, not yet. It's long enough to have friends, but circumstances are what they are. (Maybe that's something that should go on my tombstone (I collect things that should go on my tombstone):

___Here lies apennyfortheoldguy:

___circumstances were what they were.

___in any case, he tried.


(The second thing I've been carrying around a while. I discovered it a few years ago as a truth that applied to me).


___*___*___*

Sometimes I worry that work has become... a religion. A unifying, all-important ethos that I believe in so thoroughly it's difficult to deviate from. I do work a lot. Usually because I enjoy it, occasionally of a necessity, and sometimes, like today, as a solace. A place where I can escape from the closed shops and the silent streets and the house with milky light and laundry hanging around, with none of my art on the walls and phones too terrifyingly likely to ring. (I have a new-found phobia of the phone ringing).


___*___*___*

this morning we dropped my sister off at the airport. back to LA she goes. with teary eyes she tells me you're the most normal person in this family. my mom and i look at each other, then at her, and laugh. yes. me and my six hits of amphetamines a day. i'm the most normal. god help us.


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Life is something I enjoy best in hindsight. I can't understand this... why it is this way. The living of it, the experience of it I find usually very difficult. Taxing. Quite taxing. Yet in hindsight, when I think of it, I see it so beautifully. So much good fortune. So much grace and happiness ... (and yet, at the time, in the moment, on that day, in that interview, on that train, outside the car, next to the kiosk, by the beach, on the treadmill, talking to her, before the, after that, in the, besides a - soo too difficult). I hate that. I hate that about me I wish I were different in that regard. In Haifa whenever I was happy, on those occasions I would feel spontaneously, outrageously happy (and i could never understand why or from what depth of a tuesday afternoon or sunday morning they came from, these little sunny 10 minute gifts) I'd run to the Shrines. Run in and sit and praypraypray:

___just once dear god, just once dear alleverything,
___here, see me as i am, with the blankets aside i am here, so happy with
___you,me,us, so thankful of every cinnamon bun and train-fare i could afford,
___the hair's left on my head and every beautiful woman who kissed me back and
___see? here, look: memememe soo happy pleased satisfied happy even with the
___cloudsbirds unreadbooks left for my dinner, please remember me like this
___remember me like this
___remember me like this
___who i am was could be might be just please dear wonderfulalleverything
___remember me
___remember me
___remember


___*___*___*

when there are problems i buy stuff. the worse i feel the better i look. (or try to look). it's important no one sees. that's important. no one deserves the weight of that. the weight of me. when i'm like this how heavy it is to be with me. the air, the water, everything is heavier. people rub their eyes they're not sure if the room just got darker. i see their neck muscles struggle with the coffee. the chairs creek. the train makes more noise carrying me. i'm sorry for it. it's important no one sees.


___*___*___*

i am doing a job designed for people a decade younger than me. i do it well, but it does me too. incessantly busy and always bored. i'm never bored i don't know how to manage this feeling. this must be what the so-called rat-race is. i wake up everyday and shave when i would rather have my beard. it's for the resume i tell myself and it's true, it is (i can hear my resume giggling with joy every morning i wake up at 5:55 am).


___*___*___*

Something I always thought about when I was at the Hague... especially when i heard the war-criminals speak, was the look in their eyes. That feeling of... we once were kings. The look of 'once upon a time i could have had you killed, raped, appropriated your possessions, i was the only god you would have a chance to fear'. And then, these crumpled up, decaying men sitting in the Hague dock. Defiant, melancholic, nostalgic. They all stay in the same detention unit, did you know that? These guys who carved up countries and families and made plans and executed them, and were kings together, now sit at the same table in the same mess hall in the same UN detention unit. Hey, Ratko, remember the time we got drunk after the massacre? (i imagine them saying these things to one another). Yes! Radovan, you sly dog! I'm sorry we got into that big fight the next day. We were kings! (and then more sadly, across their face it passes) for a while there, we were such kings.(It terrifies me. The thought that that conversation might exist)


___*___*___*

i struggle through every one of my todays.
but dear god, yesterday, i was such a king.


___*___*___*

help me.



___