The Truth: From Inside a Burning Building
Je porte le poids du monde sur mes épaules.
I carry the weight of the world on my shoulders
and hope not to crumble.
I’ve witnessed buildings, peel slowly;
I’ve seen them lose their hope, little by little;
I’ve seen the hope extinguished
from the veins that pulse
inside the most inanimate of objects;
I have seen the life
in something that is said
to be void of life.
If they could only find your life,
I know they would see that you carry the weight,
tu portes le poids du monde
sur tes epaules aussi,
et qui peut te regarder?
Qui peut t’entendre?
Who will ever hear you?
Find your voice.
I plea for you to please find your voice.
I hear your whisper,
your calls in the wind,
your echoes
and your achings
and your pleas for someone
to hear you.
I know how you feel.
I know how it feels
to be run by the constant beating,
the constant wearing down.
They say a fire can kill you;
if you are inside a burning building,
the possibility of being reduced
to a virtual mess of nothingness
is high.
You can extinguish a fire,
yet a fire can extinguish you.
A fire can kill you.
But you, you live with that fire.
You live with the constant,
incessant,
peeling away of your veins by heat;
the constant stripping
of your internal wires
by holding something
that nobody
should hold inside of them.
I know.
But do they know?
Do they know how it feels
to live with a fire?
Has anyone ever coexisted with a fire?
You carry the weight,
and you live with that fire.
All the troubles in the world
live inside of you.
The pain of hurting too much
because you’ve given too much
to someone who could never
love you back.
The struggle of not doing
what you’re supposed to
and going against what you are told.
The evils that could never be named.
You give them a name,
you cultivate them,
you let them eat you alive
and burn inside of you,
and then you give them reign to roam free.
You free them, just as they free you.
You carry the fire
that could keep anyone in chains,
yet you let it set you free.
You can sing about these things
that mean nothing to you.
You can write about every beautiful thing
that this world has to offer.
You can hope that this beauty
will set you free.
You can hope,
but they don’t mean anything.
Sometimes the most beautiful of things
cannot give rise to anything real.
Sometimes, you cannot feel alive
if you do not hold the fire inside of you,
let it slide up, curl up
and burn around your esophagus
and sliver by sliver,
cut away at any safety
that beauty provided you with.
They say a fire can kill you,
but do they know what it’s like
to live with a fire inside of you?
I do, and I know you do too.
Je porte le poids du monde sur mes épaules.
I carry the weight of the world on my shoulders
and hope not to crumble.
