I HAVE been so innerly proud, and so long alone,      Do not leave me, or I shall break.
     Do not leave me.
 
     What should I do if you were gone again
     So soon?
     What should I look for?
     Where should I go?
     What should I be, I myself,
     "I"?
     What would it mean, this
     I?
 
     Do not leave me.
 
     What should I think of death?
     If I died, it would not be you:
     It would be simply the same
     Lack of you.
     The same want, life or death,
     Unfulfilment,
     The same insanity¹ of space
     You not there for me.
 
     Think, I daren't die
     For fear of the lack in death.
     And I daren't live.
 
     Unless there were a morphine or a drug.
 
     I would bear the pain.
     But always, strong, unremitting
     It would make me not me.
     The thing with my body that would go on
        living
     Would not be me.
     Neither life nor death could help.
 
     Think, I couldn't look towards death
     Nor towards the future:
     Only not look.
     Only myself
     Stand still and bind² and blind myself.
 
     God, that I have no choice!
     That my own fulfilment is up against me
     Timelessly!
     The burden of self-accomplishment!
     The charge of fulfilment!
&nbs............