My Jandek Plague Journal: 4/26/20 "Part Yesterday"

"But it’s so hard to tell you/I quit describing things/That’s what I did." Talked to family last night, caught up with how they're doing. Healthy and safe, keeping calm. Where they'd seemed frazzled a few weeks ago, they seemed all right, like they'd settled into a routine, found the new normal. Part of that comes from ignoring what the administration says: politics is the reality of lived experience and what could be further removed from that than what any president says? I said I often felt bad about leaving even though I'm so glad I left. My situation in the US was killing me, but I feel like I've abandoned everyone to their fate. The fight to have is there, and I left when that was most apparent. But what opposition would I have offered had I stayed? I wouldn't have even martyred myself to nothing, I would have remained a cog, simultaneously grinding and being ground down myself. Or am I just excusing my cowardice? -4/26/20. "Part Yesterday" from White Box Requiem (lyrics) (one week earlier) (one week later)