the day after

The Fear by Pablo Neruda

Everyone is after me to jump

to invigorate, and to play soccer,

to run, to swim and to fly.

Very well.

They all advise me rest,

they all send me to the doctor,

looking at me a certain way.

What happens?

They all advise me to travel,

to come and to leave to stay

to die and not to die.

It does not matter.

They all see the difficulties

of my surprised insides

by awful x-rayed portraits.

I do not agree.

Everyone is picking at my poetry

with their relentless knives and forks,

trying, no doubt, to find a fly.

I Am afraid.

I am afraid of the whole world,

afraid of cold water

afraid of death.

I am as all mortals are,

unable to be comforted.

And so, in these brief, passing days

I shall not take them into account.

I shall open up and closet myself

with my most treacherous enemy.