Shyness by Pablo Neruda — Read

I scarcely knew, by myself, that I existed, that I'd be able to be, and go on being.

I was afraid of that, of life itself.

I didn't want to be seen,

I didn't want my existence to be known.

I became pallid, thin, and absentminded.

I didn't want to speak so that nobody would recognize my voice, I didn't want to see so that nobody would see me.

Walking, I pressed myself against the wall like a shadow slipping away.

I would have dressed myself in red roof tiles, in smoke, to continue there, but invisible, to attend everything, but at a distance, to keep my own obscure identity fastened to the rhythm of the spring.

A girl's face, the pure surprise of a laugh dividing the day in two like the two hemispheres of an orange, and I shifted to another street, unnerved by life and tentative, close to water without tasting its coolness, close to fire without kissing its flame, and a mask of pride encased me, and I was thin and arrogant as a spear, unlistening, unlistened to

(I made that impossible), my lament buried deep like the whine of a hurt dog at the bottom of a well.