You said, “I will go to another place, to another shore.

You said: “I’ll find a new land, find another sea—

Another city can be found that’s better than this.

A new city’ll turn up, a better one than this.

All that I struggle for is doomed, condemned to failure;

Every effort I make is condemned, turns out amiss,

and my heart is like a corpse interred.

While my heart, like a corpse, lies buried deep,

How long will my mind stagger under this misery?

And my mind—how long will my mind stay sunk in stagnant sleep?

Wherever I turn, wherever I look

Here, wherever I look, wherever I turn my gaze

I see the blackened ruins of my life,

I see the blackened wreck of all my days,

which for years on end I squandered and wrecked and ravaged”.

So many years spent, ruined, lost by me.”

You will find no other place, no other shores.

There are no new places you’ll find, you’ll catch no other tide.

This city will possess you, and you’ll wander the same

This city will follow you. The streets you tread

streets. In these same neighborhoods you’ll grow old;

Will be the same, it’s in these same houses your head

in these same houses you’ll turn gray.

Will turn grey, in the same neighborhoods that you’ll age.

Always you’ll return to this city. Don’t even hope for another.

Always you’ll end up in this city. Don’t hope to turn the page

There’s no boat for you, there’s no other way out.

To an Elsewhere for which there’s no ship for you, no road shows clear.

In the way you’ve destroyed your life here,

Just as you destroyed your life back here

in this little corner, you’ve destroyed it everywhere else.

In this tiny retreat, so you ruined it world-wide.