Look in the mirror. Let us both look.
Here is my naked body.
Apparently you like it,
I have no reason to.
Who bound us, me and my body?
Why must I die
together with it?
I have the right to know where the borderline
between us is drawn.
Where am I, I, I myself.Belly, am I in the belly? In the intestines?
In the hollow of the ***? In a toe?
Apparently in the brain. I do not see it.
Take my brain out of my skull. I have the right
to see myself. Don’t laugh.
That’s macabre, you say.It’s not me who made
my body.
I wear the used rags of my family,
an alien brain, fruit of chance, hair
after my grandmother, the nose
glued together from a few dead noses.
What do I have in common with all that?
What do I have in common with you, who like
my knee, what is my knee to me?Surely
I would have chosen a different model.I will leave both of you here,
my knee and you.
Don’t make a wry face, I will leave you all my body
to play with.
And I will go.
There is no place for me here,
in this blind darkness waiting for
corruption.
I will run out, I will race
away from myself.
I will look for myself
running
like crazy
till my last breath.One must hurry
before death comes. For by then
like a dog ****** by its chain
I will have to return
into this stridently suffering body.
To go through the last
most strident ceremony of the body.Defeated by the body,
slowly annihilated because of the bodyI will become kidney failure
or the gangrene of the large intestine.
And I will expire in shame.And the universe will expire with me,
reduced as it is
to a kidney failure
and the gangrene of the large intestine.
Here is my naked body.
Apparently you like it,
I have no reason to.
Who bound us, me and my body?
Why must I die
together with it?
I have the right to know where the borderline
between us is drawn.
Where am I, I, I myself.Belly, am I in the belly? In the intestines?
In the hollow of the ***? In a toe?
Apparently in the brain. I do not see it.
Take my brain out of my skull. I have the right
to see myself. Don’t laugh.
That’s macabre, you say.It’s not me who made
my body.
I wear the used rags of my family,
an alien brain, fruit of chance, hair
after my grandmother, the nose
glued together from a few dead noses.
What do I have in common with all that?
What do I have in common with you, who like
my knee, what is my knee to me?Surely
I would have chosen a different model.I will leave both of you here,
my knee and you.
Don’t make a wry face, I will leave you all my body
to play with.
And I will go.
There is no place for me here,
in this blind darkness waiting for
corruption.
I will run out, I will race
away from myself.
I will look for myself
running
like crazy
till my last breath.One must hurry
before death comes. For by then
like a dog ****** by its chain
I will have to return
into this stridently suffering body.
To go through the last
most strident ceremony of the body.Defeated by the body,
slowly annihilated because of the bodyI will become kidney failure
or the gangrene of the large intestine.
And I will expire in shame.And the universe will expire with me,
reduced as it is
to a kidney failure
and the gangrene of the large intestine.
