The Seeker by Pablo Neruda — Read

I left to find what I had lost in enemy cities:

They closed streets and doors on me.

They attacked me with fire and water.

They threw shit at me.

I just wanted to find toys broken in dreams: a crystal horse, my dug-up watch.

Nobody wanted to understand my joyless fate, my absolute disinterest.

In vain I explained to women

I had no desire to steal anything or kill their grandmothers.

They screamed in fear as they saw me emerge from a chest, or come down the chimney.

Still, for days on end and nights of violent rain

I kept on moving.

I traversed furtively hostile mansions by way of roofs and fences, and even hid under the rug as I battled oblivion.

I never found what I looked for.

Nobody had my horse, my loves, the rose

I lost in my lover's waist along with countless kisses.

I was jailed, injured, misunderstood, treated like a notorious criminal and I no longer seek my own shadow.

I'm as serious as everyone else, but I miss what I once loved: the sweet foliage now opens, a leaf at a time, till you are really still- truly naked.