My blanket is a loving clown with a face whose color has drained away.
On good days
It serves as a pantry:
stolen beetroots and jams
armies of vermin
swarming all over them
leaving brightly colored streaks.
With wounds in our flesh we gouge out
a path for senseless convoys.
At night, exhausted,
I wrap myself up in its worn-out warmth
as if to forget.
It also whispers to me in its threadbare voice:
“Chin up!
You have to carry on.
You are not allowed to weaken.
Feelings kill, don’t forget that!”
You have to allow yourself one certainty:
that this nightmare will end.
Even if believing on your own is difficult.
Through its
gray, stained, moth-eaten face
I see circles of plain sky,
often black.
if I want to push my luck.
And with the wings of my broken dreams,
I hold the blanket tight.
Then I think of nothing.