Based on Serbia 2026
Lavina — Kraj mene
He has some good days, and some not so great.
Some days he runs the gamut: fear, shame, clarity, rage.
MORNING
When he wakes up in his bed
he hasn’t a clue where he is.
But he knows the sheets are wet.
Realising what he has done
shocks him right out of his funk.
Distressed, he waits for help to come.
Mortified, he lets a young nurse wash him down there,
wondering when he came to depend on other men.
Then, when they lead him to where breakfast waits,
he can’t remember what he ate the previous day.
And while he sits, the world just dissipates;
thoughts lost or lost in thought, he couldn’t say.
AFTERNOON
Standing in front of a mirror,
he fingers an old comb,
no idea who the man is before him
or when he can go home.
Led into the dayroom, he startles:
there’s music and colours and birthday cake.
Then he sees that at one of the tables
a woman is eating a paper plate.
He wants to laugh, but it’s too much to bear.
What is he doing in this madhouse full of old men
that smells of piss and shit and living death?
Cold fear and torment start to fill his head –
Then he forgets.
SUNDOWN
His anger blazes, but it knows no blame.
Who is this haggard woman who keeps calling him ‘dad’?
He doesn’t recognize her, know her name.
He’s only twenty-one. She must be mad.