You,

curled up

In a small room,

Come out.

The more unbearable the pain of your wounds, the more you should come out.

Without needing to expose your scars, in the square,

Sharing hearts and sharing food,

You will find warmth among us.

The more you are consumed by cruel shame, the more you should come out.

Who among us is flawless and without weakness?

Just talk loudly, sing with us,

And you will forget what shame even was.

The more you are shaken by unknown anxieties, the more you should come out.

Observe, inspect, and touch our every glance, word, and action,

And you will realize that fear was never real.

You, who have wronged yourself and others,

You, who shrink in fear that your sins may be exposed,

Come, confess your mistakes, pay the price,

And claim the unchanging freedom.

Come out.

You,

Here,

To the square.

What you truly ought to fear

Is neither the events of the past

Nor the uncertainty of the future.

For they are already shattered or do not exist.

What you truly ought to fear

Is Today, from which

No matter how hard you struggle,

You can never escape.

Recall and imagine as much as you can,

Cling desperately to past glories

And to the vanity of future dreams.

But at this very moment,

With a mocking grin,

Today’s massive grip

Is sucking in all your time.

approaches with smile, driving a spike into your ear.

You scream in agony, stabbing everyone you grasp.

Like the people of old, living their daily lives,

Deceived by the notion of founding a great nation,

Turning into a cloud of darkness,

Summoning hell onto this land.

His methods may have changed in form,

But their essence remains the same.

He whispers into your ear,

Promising perfect happiness without misfortune or disaster,

Saying that all you need is to cling to this single truth, and,

To consider anything that hinders you as evil.

If his deceit once scorched continents with flames,

Now, he builds a narrow, suffocating hell inside your heart.

He tells you,

To hold yourself as the most precious in the world.

Tossed here and there,

He grew fearful of the world,

Becoming a single sharp thorn

That no one could dare to touch.

Though the thorn was as hard as steel,

His side was smoother than a petal.

If someone could become smaller than the thorn,

They would still find room to embrace him with open arms.

In the moment of helplessness and despair,

When just one more stone would have caused him to collapse,

He could not find a single person to comfort him.

Had he possessed money, he might have turned his gaze elsewhere,

Or if he had authority or knowledge,

He might have found a place to lean on.

But he had nothing,

Nothing but the tattered rags that wrapped around him.

With no other option coming to mind

Other than dying if he remained still,

He ventured out into the streets. In the streets, he thought,

There would be people in situations worse than his own,

People accustomed to begging for help

Or receiving it, weakened by their circumstances.

So he shared warm water and meals from the ration house

With the people on the streets, listening to their stories.

In doing so, he neither found the value of life

Nor seized a purpose or direction.

He simply clung to whatever place he could find.

He was not there to listen to the stories of the vagrants,

But to see his own reflection in their eyes

And to weep silently within his heart.

The vagrants pour out their lives to him,

Paying no heed to his gloomy expression.

He is only silently weeping inside.

With no other option coming to mind

Other than dying if he remained still,

He needed a place to cling to.

Inside a cage filled with mist

The door was open

I left in search of freedom

While you stayed and sang

Crossing over the highest mountains

And descending into deep valleys

Even as I skimmed across the surface of the sea

And reached the edge of the horizon

Your clear song continued to echo in my ears

While I gasped for breath

Music must have surrounded you

Though there are no new places left for me on this Earth

I know without venturing into the distant universe

That the whole world was within your song

And I too, follow your lead and sing