I knew Feco when he was strong and proud,
a falcon amongst sparrows round our home.
His dad was in the shithouse that he burnt.
He'd slumped asleep whilst he was on the throne.

If not that, someone would have had him killed.
If no one else, his liver would have done.
Up there he'll wait for mercy for his sins,
whilst down here prison bars weigh down his son.

Feco was very changed when he returned.
He barely spoke, or just made muttered sounds.
A handsome man, he wasn't spared in there,
and they who have been tortured are the damned.

And little Feri, in youth custody?
He's thirty and his writing's brought him fame,
but can't sleep now; is petrified of death
Summer and light are horrible to him.

He cannot look into a mirror's face.
His lover only gets held in the dark.
He writes and studies fairytales but finds
that every single beauty in them's fake.

Chloride from water, God from iron minds
the scars and bruises vanish; they don't brand.
They're meaningless—they mean nothing at all—
but they who have been tortured are the damned.

My aunty Roza, chewed by cancer cells,
was married to a man whose leg was lost.
Mum suffocated and my brother's face
some crappy surgeon fudged into a mess.

Zoli's in prison, still has half a year.
His sisters borrowed money 'to buy food',
used his disabled card. But the poor man
can't even feel that angry he was conned.

The local beauty poisoned her love dead.
Now the priest threatens that he'll lend a hand—
says absolution lies between her thighs
and they who have been tortured are the damned.

Even a fool will quickly learn the rules:
torture's a sin, but being tortured worse.
The living dead are livelier dead again,
and all your life, the first will still come first.

See, Prince, the one who's written all these lines
can't write an ode to joy although he slams
every lament as just cheap scribbled trash!
He has been tortured, so he too is damned.

I'm going to smash someone into myself.
It terrifies me, how much I desire.
Someone loved me—they didn't dare for long.
And now they've left, although they are still here.

For vengeance, I'll smash them into myself,
and I'll crash too—lacking judgement and law.
Kindness is blackmail. Shouldn't I be harsh?
What if I win for just withstanding more?

In God's blind eye, the heroes are the wrong.
Enough is not enough for what we want.
Too late for me to know that the attempt
to make love last's just an experiment.

Come now, come now, Master Raven.
Don't you, don't you take my soul.
If you steal it, please don't pull—
didn't win it at a fairground,
there's someone expects it found,
perhaps a girl,
a boyish girl,
waits for it back.
Expects it back.

Come now, come now, Master Raven—
all you croak are accusations.
If I'm right then fate will happen,
why would you know any better?
Or the ones who laugh and titter?
Eyes and toes
they swell and bloat.
New road's prepared
beneath my feet.

Come now, come now, Master Raven!
Must you pluck both my eyes out?
Of course it hurts, though I won't fight—
pressed by wings, they're weighing down,
and if you don't mind now, I'll scream:
'the Demons, God!
You gave your word—
not this body
of a bird!'

Women are treacherous, and mothers most—
ovens who'll burn you out, or iron-hard,
or else deep-freezers chilling mute all words—
they lay love like the traps they lay for rats;
they crush your feet so you can't ever run.
You want your mother when you want to fuck:
her body and her soul. You'll have no luck
until you break out from this cage called home.

Leave me alone, mother! Go love my dad!
Let me go out where lovers wait for me.
Can't bear this stenching taint that's in my blood—
let me love other women, finally!
They'll know me as you, mother, never can.
You have to die so I can be a man.