Autobiographical Sketch Poem by Lauren Mendinueta

I insist on avoiding nothing
to live is to participate
Anyway is it not more sensible to choose from what you know?
I oppose servitude
Have I achieved it?
Subjected to another slavery
I am executioner and victim.
I accept it I prefer it
I recognize the hero's grandeur
Oh glory! Oh victory! Oh wretched one!
The coin I carry in my hand
is a tiny mirror
Catching sight of myself ignoring my flip side
shadow hole
The head of the coin is beautiful
its outlined profile
its ugly flip side
It is not easy
to mold myself like a work of art fashioned by my own hand
If I renounce that other side of me
if I cast it off and let beauty triumph
then I would need to renounce my own self
I surprise myself
Isn't this also a moral?
I renounce being
only that which is not
is built
Today infancy is a shudder
"all has been consummated"
In time
the coin will not last
The mirrors do not store the essence
the only immovable part
The fear of memory frightened away
there are too many paths for one face alone
My words
roam through the streets of the brimming city
eye of the needle
or driven spike of absence
Is this a useless sketch?
Premature punishment
of the very image.

Translation: 2010, Constance Lardas