I Still Get Around by Pablo Neruda — Read

Now and then, I am happy!

I stated before a wise man who without passion examined me and pointed out my shortcomings.

Maybe I never found salvation for my crooked teeth, each hair on my head lost its way and fell: it was better not to argue the trouble with my cavernous trachea: as for the rivers in my heart, they were full of warnings just as my gloomy liver that didn't serve as a shield or this conspiring kidney.

With my saddened prostate and sudden urges of my urethra, everything slowly led me to a final diagnosis.

Staring that sage in the eye

I decided not to succumb and showed him I was able to see, to touch, to hear and endure at the next opportunity.

And so he'd leave me the pleasure of being loved and of loving:

I sought one love or another for a month or for a week or for the next-to-last day.

The wise and contemptuous man watched me with the indifference that camels have for the moon and decided in his pride to forget my entire organism.

Since then I've never been sure whether I should obey his decree of death or feel as well as my body tells me that I do.

And confused, I couldn't decide whether to seriously meditate or feed myself on carnations.