I am nothing

I am nothing

I shall never be anything

I cannot wish to be anything.

Aside from that, I hold within me

all the dreams of the world.


Today, I’m defeated, as if I’d learned the truth.

Today, I am lucid, as if I were about to die.
 


I made of myself something beyond my knowledge,

And what I could make of myself I failed to do.

The domino costume that I wore was all wrong.

They immediately took me for someone I was not

and I didn’t deny it, and I was lost. When I tried

to take off the mask,

It was stuck to my face.

When I took it off and looked in the mirror,
 
I had grown old,

I was drunk, and I didn't know how to put on

the costume that I had not taken off.

I threw the mask away and slept

in the dressing room

As a dog tolerated by the management

because he’s harmless.

And I’m going to write this story to prove

that I’m sublime.
 

Fra Tabacaria (The Tobacco Shop) av Fernando António Nogueira Pessoa. Poet, 1888 - 1935