A big favour

A BIG FAVOUR (E A D G B E, capo 4)

(Italicised text taken from Yukio Mishima’s Confessions of a Mask)

I can’t keep up with time anymore. Like paddling out and never making it past the shore. Losing sight of both where I stared and where I want to be.

I can’t keep on making the same mistake. Like I’m the only in the world who’s to blame. But I am the only who has to go sleep each night.

 

I’m not talking because I don’t know.

I move slowly because I never want to leave.

Listen closely, it’s the only way we’ll ever know.

 

I took it for an ill-omened sign that the richly blessed sunshine should fall upon me thus, that my heart should be this filled with moments that left nothing to be desired. Surely in a few minutes a sudden air raid or some equally calamitous event would come and kill us where we stood.

 

I cannot obtain the things I thought I once would. I cannot obtain the things I thought would make me happy. I am not the same but I don’t what has changed.

 

I’m not singing to please anyone.

I am leaving because it feels like I need to.

I am stinging, I am listening.

 

I’m not talking because I don’t know.

I move slowly because I never want to leave.

Listen closely, it’s the only way we’ll ever know.

 

Surely, I thought, we do not deserve even a little happiness. Or perhaps we had acquired the bad habit of regarding even a little happiness as a big favour, which we would (one day) have to repay.