Agony
Some people struggle with death,
I struggle with reality.
The world is not real.
My country is not real.
The horror of a storm, the horror of blood --
I am in a boat in the middle of the sea.
All I have are books. No fresh water, no food.
I will not starve to death. There is land on the horizon --
It is not land I need.
I am half-fish: I have scales,
fins, gills.
I have wings. My friends are not real --
I should not call them friends. I should call them brothers, sisters:
we do not share the same blood.
We do not share the same mind. My family is not real --
my mother, my father, they did not give birth to me, they did not raise me.
I was not raised from earth. I was not raised from the dead.
My God is not real. He is just a voice in my head.
He is just a concept. He is just a symbol
of someone else's power over me --
I have no body. I have no spirit. I have no soul.
I have no power over myself: I'm not real.
I dreamed you up, your red hair and green eyes
the blood-stained earth, or jewels in the clouds.
Righteousness weighs but a trifle.
Wealth weighs nothing at all.
I am grown mad, but you have no proof
just as I have no proof of you.
There is only three of us here,
but she completes me -- there is only two.
There is me, and there is you --
no, not you,
You. The earth is wiped away by the flood,
the flood is wiped away by the city,
the city is wiped away by man,
man is wiped away by the stone,
the stone is wiped away by the steel,
the steel is shaped into a cross.
What am I to do with a cross
but hang on it, or carry it, or drive it
deep into my heart?
Reality is not truth,
and death is but a trifle compared to life.