We

We began in the morning with vodka;
We ended at night on the bed.
They came looking for us in the shadows;
They found us at daybreak instead.

We were weary and weak with surrender;
We emptied our pockets, our hearts.
They asked us to stand at attention;
They told us to stick to our parts.

We were soaked in the tar of repentance;
We were feathered in scraps of regret.
They spoke in the voices of angels;
They were angry as saints when we wept.

We spent all the days in the desert,
We spent all the nights in the sea,
We begged and we begged them for respite.
They assured us we'd never be free.

Soon we trembled, we raged,
We corroded with hate.
They grew timid and small in their fright.
They pretended we were invisible;
We grew taller to colour their sight.

We soared over the rooftops to blind them.
We smothered their thick walls in oil.
We left them to dig by the wayside.
We littered the earth with our spoils.

We found the survivors; we finished them off.
We buried the olive branch deep
in the ground. They searched the world over--they folded.
We made sure it would never be found.


**
The first two lines are a translation of Nautilus Pompilius's Striptiz