I went to see a manslaughter trial when I was in England.

I didn't have any choice on that matter. I wouldn't have gone there if I could have avoided it. wouldn't have gone there if I had known it was a murder trial. I wouldn't have gone there because it made me feel like I was there for the curiousity. Because I felt like a child who stares at the apes at the zoo, points her finger at them because she's never seen them before.

I had never seen a criminal before. I didn't want to sit there, and listen to someone else's life. Someone else's tragedies.
When I had stayed there long enough I didn't want to leave. I wanted to know what would happen to him.

I don't know what it is about these things but I didn't want to leave him. I didn't know him. I don't know what his name is, I don't know what happened to him. I don't even know how many years he got.

I think I felt like him. Sitting there, accused. I think that's what made me want to know what happened to him. Because there was something like him in me.
I don't know him, it's not that. It's not about what he was/is like. I don't care about that. But it was the way he sat there and the way I sat there.

I don't approve of murder. Sometimes I think that it's justified, in some ways, but it's something I could never... understand, I think. I respect life. I respect death too, but that's different.

I don't think it's anyone's position to take anyone's life. But I think I can forgive that. In some cases.

There's something about it that I can't understand. I don't understand how anyone can, however mad s/he is, take someone's life. I don't understand how people can. Because I can't. I've tried to kill a bird, knowing it's suffering, but I can't. I've tried to but I can't make myself. I might cut my wrists because I'm so angry at myself when I can't release someone's sufferings but I can't make myself do it.

I don't think I've ever been angry enough to actually hit someone other than myself.
I can control the way I hurt myself, I can't tell when I hurt others too much. I think that's what makes me never want to hurt anyone else.

But I still keep thinking of him. Something in murder fascinates me. It's so extreme that it becomes fascinating. I guess that's the reason people want to write to murderers, even marry them. I don't really understand that but that's because I respect self-control. I would be too afraid to be near anyone who has actually committed a murder. Manslaughter is another thing, but I don't think I could like people like that. I have had too many bad experiences of lost self-control, I think. Nothing's worse than murderous rage and I've had that enough in my life to know that it's a pattern that repeats itself. If you're prone to that, eventually the self-control you sometimes might have crashes.
I can accept manslaughter more easily than murder. Murder is wrong. Manslaughter isn't in the same sense. It's still wrong but I can begin to imagine what it's like. I can't imagine how the mind of someone who's cpable of murdering someone works.

Somwtimes I wish I'd know what happened to him. I probably wouldn't like it though. He was 23 then, I think. I was, what, 15?
I don't know if I approved what he did but I can understand it. Because I can understand the rage he could have felt. I don't know him, of course. I don't know his rage.

However, I do know that this life is unfair.
And that's why I know it doesn't really matter that much. Nothing matters that much. The second that's here right now is the only thing that has any real insignificance. It doesn't really matter if I get to the university or not, it doesn't really matter if I end up cleaning for my living instead of teaching languages.
I've been fortunate though, in so many ways. I have all these things some people can't even imagine of having. But i n the end I'm going to die too. Then it won't matter at all. Nothing will matter at all.
That's why I want to die sometimes. For the sweet indifference.

The day before yesterday.