Reflections

What do you mean, I enjoy the pain?
Are you insane?
How can you say that I want it this way?
Do you really believe
that I choose to cry such bitter tears?

No! No! No!
Life dealt me a lousy hand.
How can I possibly conceive
that I can win at this game?
Are you saying that all the players bluff
their way through?
Am I the only one who takes this seriously?
Can it be?
Could I have won easily?
If I had dared...
If I hadn't been so scared?

Come on now, wait just one minute,
let's review the facts.
I'm not that gullible, you know.

Did I imagine being told
that I wasn't good enough?
That hurt!
What did I do, you ask?
Well, what could I do?
Did I try again?
What? And face humiliation!
I have my pride!

And how about when I tried to please.
They thought I was a patsy.
They said I tried too hard to be accepted.
How did I feel?
I felt attacked!
I flew in a rage.
And I promised myself: never again!

And how about when I fell in love
and love was all that I could think of

Love turned out to be
the very worst of all.
It was so devastating
that I really fell apart.
In just a little while
I didn't even know
who I was
who I loved
what I wanted.
Love paralyzed me
It left me numb
it left me shaken
now all I feel is cold.
So yes, I gave up on love too.
Please...don't even mention
that word to me.

Look, don't bother me with
an in-depth analysis.
I will not be subjected to
a personality dissection!
I know just what you're trying to do...
You want me to turn on you too!
Then you'll say that I really
don't want to be helped.
That I enjoy my desperation.
That's why I always
run away from salvation.
As if there even was such a thing.

Next you'll be talking about
a God of love.
What a joke!
To think that I used to believe
that He really cared for me.
But now I see
that He's just a wicked puppeteer
who pulls the strings like a madman
with a twisted sense of humor.

How He must enjoy to see me tormented!
He must roll over laughing
in His castle in the sky.
He's waiting for the moment
when I'll finally just give up
roll over and die...
so He can blow upon me
with His fearsome breath of ice
and send me tumbling to
the depth of darkness...
The bottom of the toy box
where all his old toys end up
when He's bored of playing with them.
God of love indeed!

I'll tell you one more thing, my dear,
there is no such thing as joy.
Those who say they're happy
are just hallucinating.
How can you trust those fools?
They go around preaching
of mystical experiences.
They have an answer for everything...
even what you never ask.
And it's always the same thing...
They say all you need is love
and that's when I turn off.
Because I don't want to hear about it.
Love indeed!

Look around you!
Does love fill hungry mouths?
Does love restore shattered lives?
Does love subdue piercing cries?
Does love heal the countless afflictions
that infest rotting bodies?
Behold love and its miracles!
Impressive, isn't it?

So, as you can see,
there's nothing you can say to me
that will change the way I feel.
I may as well be made of steel.
Because the truth is,
I don't want to hear.
In fact, I don't want to feel
either pleasure or pain.
It's all the same in the end.
What's the point, what's the deal?

So give it up, my dear
and go back to your corner.
Venerate your virtues
and stop trying to change the lives
of those who are just as necessary
for your comfort
as the idols that you emulate.

What, are you surprised?
Did you really think that I have no idea?
How incredibly naive!

Funny, isn't it?
That you thought
that you could teach me...
Lead me by the hand
to the land of happy endings...

Have you any notion, then,
of what would become of you?
Did you ever take the time
to think it through?
Where would you be
if it weren't for those like me?

Carmen Colombo
October 1990