APOLOGY OF TRAITORS
I first learned to exhume the malice buried in their words,
Those grimoires of hatred, cruelty, savagery, and ignominy,
So I might understand upon which marble I carved the sanctity of my dignity.
Most of these demonic beings bury themselves in the cowardice of silence.
The clamor of truth rarely interests those afraid to lose their comfortable delusions.
I’ve seen diabolical mothers, chained in the darkness of their own decay,
Choose to stone their own flesh rather than chip the effigy of well-groomed impostors.
I chose the silence of ignorance as a refuge.
Slander always has longer legs than truth.
Humans have never been angels nor monsters.
He who claims heavenly ascension often stumbles in the devil’s fountains.
That is what I said to the mouth that relayed to me, like a ceremonial slap,
The impure judgments spoken against me,
All while knowing the tremors that rattle my nerves,
The porcelain of my emotions.
But it mattered to them no more than a feather on a battlefield.
I cut without hesitation.
I withdrew my presence as one pulls a knife from the heart.
The wisest posture would have been golden silence,
The sealing of lips before wars found their tongue.
But alas: humans prefer fire to restraint,
And no one stands sentinel for a solitary soul.
They traded righteousness for social graces,
Loyalty for consensus.
For to defend—truly defend—
Is done neither out of affection nor convenience.
It demands a straight spine,
And the courage to face the pack alone.
Those who dare deserve to be called statues,
For they stand firm in the storm.
As for those who drip venom in your name,
They hope, in their delusion, that you collapse beneath their own poison.
Let them perish waiting.
“It’s just a point of view,” they said.
I do not concur.
None is without stain.
But when a friend wallows in filth,
There is no need to applaud him from hell.
Copyright ©
Auguste Romain Nyecki
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