It's getting late
I think that's what I was thinking about when trying to sleep
to see if at least sleeping I would still dream, but I couldn't sleep
to see if at least sleeping I could still breath
I'm sufocating
I think that's what I was thinking about
while my dream was trying to come
trying to turn off my head, but on a screen somewhere they were showing a movie
It was a bloody movie...
or was it just the news?
It was a gang movie...
or was it the militia?
It was a historical movie,
and old soap opera
terror in the favela and crowded hospitals
a beaten child
a tortured transgender
I was so upset
The scenes were horrible, beyond limits never before tolerated —
Now, more tolerated by human beings now more insensitive
Now more insensitive than the German who treated the Jews like cattle,
marking them with ember — and now in Brazil, 80 years later, the plot is the same:
fear and manichaeism — and the hatred is normal,
prejudice is accepted and death became trivial.
You're either excommunicated or you're like the oxes
This place has always been a corral
A bible, a butt, a ball, a drink and leftover bit of rice and beans
What else could we want?
A gun to each one,
a heck of a joke mocking those who are going to die?
Could it be that my friend from Belo Horizonte jumped from the window of the fifth floor
because she felt this anguish I feel
for not seeing any beautiful thing when we look at the horizon, and rather seeing a lot of
monsters making toasts with cups of red wine and the most expensive meat in their plates?
The cheapest meat is black meat. People share condolences
and prints of the pictures of their corpses, but their text in the comments [of the news in the internet] is pre-made:
"if they died on the hills and they're black and they're broke — they're probably a criminal, so that's alright".
If Kathlen wasn't a pregnant woman, they'd say she was a drug dealer as well
They families may cry, but the authorities will ignore it and the Devil may even laugh
Now I'm finally getting sleepy and I'm also smiling
while playing with Henry, the boy
Acabou chorare: no more crying
In the dream, I'm composing together with Moraes Moreira,
but not even up there he forgets the shame:
There goes Brazil, downhill
And the new guys from Bahia arriving in heaven were executed
because they stole a piece of meat from a supermarket
Then the security guards caught them in the act
At first they asked for money
but soon they called the neighborhood's drug dealers and
told them to deliver the petty thiefs to the gravedigger
They arrived in heaven
"What's up, Gabriel? You? Here?"
I became concerned: did I die?
But it's just a dream
I'll try and use the opportunity to give my father a hug
It's too hard to find him
there's too much people coming
in a neverending line
I've seen a couple of angels over there complaining because there was a country rejecting vaccine offerings
I disguised my nationality
I think I am a patriot
But in heaven God will flicker whoever puts their
flags above everything and call them idiots
I think I am a humanist
But the humanity is hard to like now
I ask for a piece of paper and a pen and start writing a lyrics and meet Aldir Blanc
I mesmerize over a short story by Rubem Fonseca and sing a song by Roupa Nova
While, in a corner, Jesus looks at me disapprovingly
I think I am a communist
Because I've always kicked with my left foot
I've met Maradona shouting "Argentina!", I think he is a patriot
Am I a patriot, am I a communist?
or just another dead man living in hell
just another dream dying in heaven
just another bill in a suit's pocket
Am I a communist, am I a patriot?
I'm a cacique attacked in his oca
I'm a kid asking for food
I'm a seal applauding an orca
I'm a scientist seeking handouts
I'm a maroon turned into a joke
I'm a student raped at school*
I'm a sloth watching the forest burn
I'm just one more among millions
who are so divided, in death and in life
We're all devotees of criminal saints
When fighting for votes, we look like the Hooligans
Some shout "Legend!", others — "Genocidist!"
Free lunch with shit on the plate
All that is true will be twisted
All the power to the slave-driver
When I die
I want no crying no candle
I want a yellow ribbon
With her name written on it
This dream is getting weird
here comes another friend, laughing: Eduardo Galvão. His eyes still shine
while he sends a message to his daughter:
"Darling, life is meant to be enjoyed, it's not a competition"
My friend, she knows it, so do I
and that's why I overtop hatred with love
and whenever I can, I dream
and I try to inspire tolerance
As I was able to learn from my mistakes, I don't want to bury the hope that, in a time with so many burials, the men may still see the abnormality of arrogance
and grab this chance to find out how to change — ways, attitude, behavior
but it's really hard to find fairer ways when we are all such sons of bitches
doing all we can
to batten on others in every little thing
finding normal what is absurd
pretending we're crazy and blind and deaf only when it's better for us
We're sick
the city councilor and the boy's mother, the governor and the murderous minister, who kills inocent people on the hills or rejects vaccines — where did they come from?
This dream became a nightmare
I even feel shame when I look at us
and I think I am a good citizen
therefore I expose myself and call myself out as well
As I was able to learn with the voices of the poets, I cannot accept censorship
My teachers opened my mind, so it means the cure is in education and culture
This dream is already like torture
We'd just talked about culture and look who's showed up
bringing irony and courage
he makes me smile and relieves my stress
In the dream, he's coming with thousands of victims, 500 thousand dead or more
I wake up startled and Paulo Gustavo's smile dissolves in the pain
The only thing I feel is my frozen body, and beside the bed there's a sentence: "Rest in peace"
I rub my eyes and I see I'm a slave tied to stocks
and when the whip bursts my back, I feel powerless
but then I look back
A tear washes my face and, now aware, I get up to dream again
and I break my chains the moment I recognize my face in the face of my slave-driver
When I die
I want no crying no candle
I want a yellow ribbon
With her name written on it
Translation by Érika Batista. You can share, but give the credit.