I.

There is blood in every brick.

I live here now. My last day will be in a

different season than my first.

Nightmares from past epochs,

dictatorships and ages linger in

crumbling masonry and overgrown

shutters.

I am nourished by a coat of late-

summer warmth and gratitude.

I am nourished by curiosity, and by

butter-soaked mushrooms.

I am caressed by a light wind that

wants to whisper what awaits me.

II.

I need quietness.

Silent peace that does not devour me.

Four walls that do not fall onto me

But shield the waves of noise and echoes of

asphalt.

I need a window I can look out of,

And that does not stare back at me.

Within seconds, everything is scaled

down,

divided by ‘x’.

And the gigantic chunk

becomes just a chunk.

The eye refuses to honor

this multiplied reflection,

this gigantomania of space.

Within it lies the multiplication of

suffering.

The proliferation of blood pools.

The plural of tyrants.

Walled in by tons of injustice, hunger,

and never-ending greed.

III.

Because the rather simplistic paintings on the walls are quickly dealt with, I focus on the gallery floor.

There lies Busiza, the gallerist’s dog. The heavy dog attends the vernissage, because it is taking place in her living room. Experienced with social gatherings like this, she makes clear that I’m neither her first nor her last of the evening.

While the gallerist is smoking in the stairwell, the other visitors are squeezed around the kitchen table of this flat, pulling beers from the fridge.

Kneeling on the linoleum, I immerse myself in Busiza’s short fur, in her modest gaze. She responds greedily to my petting.

Another visitor kneels down next to me; he has known Busiza longer. We share her attention, divide it by two.

The man’s eyes are striking, etched into his face like two burn marks. Alcohol of past days lingers in his breath, sweetly fermented and washed down by yet another beer he found in the fridge.

His hands burrowed into Busizas fur right next to mine, my eyes land on the washed-out tattoo on his ring finger. I ask him why he carries something so disgusting on his skin.

He bursts out, grinning filthily, apologising, explaining hastily in elliptical sentences that the symbol is much older than Hitler himself, trying to drag me into the story of the Indian sun symbol.

“No!”, he shouts out, and insists that he is “certainly not a Nazi!”

Busiza rolls onto her back, exposing her belly to be petted next.

“Ah, so you and your ring finger are also older than Hitler?”, I keep myself from asking.

I turn to the second person in this white gallery room. The artist somehow manages to be even more boring than his paintings. I force myself into well-posed questions, to wring at least a drop of entertainment from these four walls. Despite those efforts, the conversation

still ebbs away like a wave in a shallow sea.

When I notice the artist wants to flirt with me now, I leave the two men alone. Star of David on one neck, swastika on the other’s finger. They clink glasses, plan to move on to a birthday party together.

“Without me”, I say to their disappointed faces.

Busiza has long ago moved on to another pair of petting hands.

I go down the stairwell, muttering a brief goodbye into the heavy cloud of cigarette smoke.

I walk back to my own living room. A dog waits for me there; he’s made of porcelain.

[Splatter] A crow shits on my head. The white bird droppings on my left shoe could be from a pigeon.

IV

[Splatter] A country where money is made of plastic and old houses out of wood. Which burns better?

I learn Romanian numbers backwards, during the hardest

workout in the women’s gym.

From eight downwards, repeatedly, under gushes of sweat.

The numbers under three sound the most beautiful.

A country where kindness does not speak in smiles.

Where hidden behind cold eyes lives a generosity and

warmth,

That digs deeper than white teeth.

A difficulty keeping myself in the middle.

Like a sailboat at sea,

Like a glass with a curved bottom,

Every second, I drift in a different direction,

To keep my head from rolling off the column’s neck.

From the outside, motionless, stiff.

This dance spins around my centre.

At first, I was round and small.

With each sip, I grow in layers, liberations,

And a stronger urge towards the air.

In doubt for the second beer.

In doubt for slight nausea,

For even more mosquito bites,

And unsettling memory gaps.