There is a world beyond
these four white walls,
That is the oasis of my soaring spirit,
Yet seated here upon this blanketed bed,
I am only a little rat,
A pathetic boy with a hat,
Who is nearly defeated
by the sayings of familiar friends
and acquaintances
feigning familial care,
For it is not a fault of theirs
but of my own.
For if it were otherwise,
I would have to fight a war without nobility,
Only to be remembered
as a crazed and insane human.
It is their fault,
but let’s not say it,
Nor face it yet,
Or else
I’d have to fight,
to kill,
to spear
those who keep encaged my bloody body.
So let us keep quiet and eat,
Till I rise higher than the moon can reach,
Till I become more rageful than the sun’s holy heat,
Till I run faster than the wolves’ heartbeat,
Till I encage that man who brought me here,
Or watch him die beneath my feet.
For this place here
and my imprisonment within these sheets is not a conniving of the evils of this world
but of the seduction of hells unknown.
To shatter martyrdom is not a grace of the Spirit,
Nor the breaking of fortitude a virtue of the typical foe,
But of an enemy partnered with those below,
To take away the nobility of war.
I will fight, yet not today,
I will destroy this place,
Though not in a day.
I will drink my soup,
As sterile as it may be,
And sleep within this bed,
comforted by a thought of their being amongst the dead,
So that later, not as another, but as myself,
I shall seek not the justice of this world,
but of another kind that I,
and only I, do know,
That men may never see me here as well,
Or conquering the world hereafter as in an ode,
For doing so seventy seven times would not do good to my foe,
But killing the snake that did bring this woe.
Take and eat,
Consume the meat,
For the time will come,
For revenge and love to meet.