“I set out on my exile into myself,

you are my country

which I can no longer approach,

you are the country where I was born

and learnt to speak,

I know only you in the world.

I swam in your eyes so often

returning to shore with my body all blue,

I navigated you so many times

watching out for the swell that predicts a storm

of blood able to drown me at any time,

you are my terra firma,

only through you can I ascend.

You, my master, covered in forests

and dotted with lakes,

land that I used to possess

and to which I can never return

from myself, from my foreignness,

dream of me at night sometimes,

so that I may enter your cradling sleep,

let me live in you at night,

as thoughts of dead geniuses live on.”

(EXILE)