This is how my sorrow became visible:
the dust that had gathered in my heart for years
finally reached my eyes.

The bitterness was now so clear
that I had to listen when my friends
told me to wash my eyes with blood.

Everything was suddenly tangled in blood—
every face, every idol, red everywhere.
Blood swept across the sun
and washed the gold from its light.

The moon erupted in blood,
its silver glow extinguished.
The sky promised a morning of blood,
and the night wept nothing but blood.

The trees hardened into crimson pillars.
Every flower filled its eyes with blood.
Every glance became an arrow,

every image it pierced, blood.
This blood—
a river crying out for martyrs—
keeps flowing in longing,
in sorrow, in rage, in love.

Let it flow.
If it is dammed up,
only hatred will remain,
dressed in the colors of death.

Don't let that happen, my friends.

Bring back all my tears instead—
let them become a flood
to wash the dust from my eyes,
to wash this blood away from my eyes forever.