Commons image by Muhammad Yahya
By Wanchen Cao
Please keep freedom away from me, my friend,
I would leave and never return.
Like a bird from its cage,
I would quickly drown in the blue sky’s warm embrace.
I have long grown used to surviving in depletion,
long forgotten to question whether any of this is real.
But my friend, I gave away my youth without knowing!
Just like a slave,
just like a slave!
I have even forgotten whose life this is!
If I am bound to be deprived of it, why not erase it from my heart entirely?
How can acts as wicked as murder be carried out so openly, so righteously?
My friend, keep freedom away from me!
I fear the beast-like rage inside my heart
will tear every illusion to pieces,
will try to lay the truth before the world;
then I will truly have lost all freedom.
Translated from the Chinese original by the author
