to balance one’s accounts, friend, for every grain in
the hourglass falls in its place anyhow. What used to hurt
is now foreign: it had gone by like a movie on the screen while
we, munching on pumpkin seeds, sat comfortably reclined in our
dreams. But when the lights came back on after the show, a heavy
feeling would remain: days empty like hulls, and jumbled together.
We never needed anything beyond what we’d frittered away while
holding on to our higher principles. Today there exists only what
we’ve rejected; everything else we don’t have.

Translated by Omer Hadžiselimović

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