Poema en Linea Recta 1/ Straight Line Poem 1 (Fernando Pessoa) (2010) Painting by A. Bento De Oliveira

I've never met anyone who's had their face smashed. All my acquaintances were champions in everything. And I, who was ordinary, filthy, vile, a brazen parasite, an unforgivably dirty guy who so often lacked the patience to bathe; I who was ridiculous, absurd, who swept through the rugs of formality, who was grotesque, petty, submissive and arrogant, who received insults without opening my mouth and when I did open it I was even more ridiculous; I who was funny to the hotel maids, I who felt the winks of the messengers, I who cheated, who borrowed and never returned, who moved the body away when they had to face fists, I who suffered the anguish of the little ridiculous things, I realize that there is no other like me in this world. The people I know and with whom I speak have never been ridiculed, never suffered an insult, never been but a prince - all of them princes - in life... Ah, who could hear a human voice confessing not a sin but an infamy! ; that counts not a violence but a cowardice! But no, they are all the Wonder if I listen to them. Is there no one in this wide world who can confess that he was once vile? O princes, my brothers! Enough, I'm sick of demigods! Where are the people of this world? So on this earth only I am vile and I am wrong? They will admit that the women did not love them, they will accept that they were betrayed - but never ridiculous! - And I who was ridiculous without having been betrayed, how can I address my superiors without hesitation? I who was vile, literally vile, vile in the petty and infamous sense of vileness. Fernando Pesso