You carry the dead within you,
Those who came before you
Those who helped create you, mould you,
Innumerable pairs of hands and minds and bodies
And they persist as you persist
You can love them, you can reject them
Everything grows, you decide what grows within you and how
Are you going to make yourself sick
Or are you going to heal, are you going to make things better,
Heal the dead, love the dead no matter what, cure ancestral dreams and longings
As you feel them inside of you in your own voice
A tree that needs to grow, not a fire that needs to spread?
What will they tell you if they see you retreat,
Will they sieve through your skin, their vices and virtues,
Put patterns in your language, tones in your mouth,
Senselessness on your tongue, and you swallowed them already, by being born,
And ask yourself who you are in contrast to them,
You want to be different, become someone else,
And yet you’re scared of the unknown,
You are the unknown,
You don’t want to repeat the old that failed in your eyes,
You want to rethink, recreate yourself and you cut yourself off,
Who are you then, amongst the multitude of people
Who do you belong to, where did you come from,
What do you feel, what remains, what’s your name?
What does it mean to be you amongst the many
Amongst the past that is you, that isn’t you,
What do you mean, you, who will follow you,
And what will they say, will you end up in a shadow,
Or in the limelight, distorted by controversy, disagreement,
Or will you be taken care of, did you make it into a value system,
Of future generations, did you make it better, were you better,
What does the memory of you, the stories of you,
Feel like in my body, in my bones, in my heart
And what can I do about it, what will I do about it,
Turn my back on you and myself, parts thereof,
Or will I take a good look at you and myself and
Give us both a hand to end this loneliness, this
Excommunication, this blocked state of existence
Sickening itself in sheer self-loathing and silence.
Croque-Melpomene 