Defeat

I who have never had a job

who have felt weak when faced with any competitor,

who squandered all the qualifications I had for life,

who can scarcely arrive at a place without wishing to leave,

(believing that to move on is a solution),

I who have been rejected in advance and helped in such a way as to humiliate me,

I who keep close to walls so as not to fall down entirely,

who am the butt of my own ridicule,

who thought that my father was eternal,

who have been humiliated by teachers of literature,

who asked on an occasion if I could help out and was greeted with a guffaw,

who will never be able to get a home together or be brilliant, or triumph in life,

I who have been abandoned by many people because I can hardly speak,

who carry the shame for acts I have not committed,

who, at the drop of a hat, would start running down the street,

I who have lost a centre I never had,

who have become the laughing stock of many people because I live in limbo,

I who was passed over to make way for persons more wretched than myself,

who am fed up with receiving advice from others even more lethargic than myself,

('You're sluggish, shake yourself a bit, wake up'),

I who will never be able to travel to India,

who have received favours without giving anything in exchange

who am blown from one end of a city to the other like a feather,

I who have no personality nor wish to have one,

who all day long cloak my rebellion,

I who have not gone to join the guerrillas,

who have done nothing for my people,

who am not a member of a terrorist group

and who despair about all those things

And about others which, if I were to enumerate them, would keep me here all day and all night,

I who cannot leave my prison,

who have received the thumbs down everywhere for my uselessness,

who, in actual fact, have not been able to get married or go to Paris ar have a peaceful day,

who refuse to recognise facts,

who am always drooling over my personal story,

I who am an imbecile, an inveterate imbecile

who lost the thread af the speech that was being delivered within me and then got lost myself,

I who do not weep when I feel a desire to do so

and arrive late far everything,

I who have been ruined by so much coming and going,

who yearn for perfect stasis and impeccable mavement,

who am neither what I am nor what I am not,

who, in spite of everything, have a satanic pride,

Although at certain moments I have felt so humbled

that I am no better than the stones I tread,

that I have lived in the same circle for fifteen years

that I believed I was predestined for something out of the ordinary and have achieved nothing,

I who shall never wear a tie,

I who cannot find my own body,

I who have perceived in flashes the sham that I am,

(I haven't been able to knock myself down, sweep myself away and create

out of my indolence, my floating, my eccentricity a new freshness),

and obstinately refuse to take my life with whatever is at hand,

I shall get up from the ground more ridiculous than ever

so as to go an macking myself and others,

until the day af reckoning.