Happy Consequence (Revised)

Forgotten the happy consequence of losing
self-confidence – while drooling, squinting,
hands shrivelling into claws, back hunching
more and more, I can reassure all concerned
their strategy is working

Spirit broken, knowing sitting uncomfortably
in the wrong position was a sure-fire way of
making me see failure, an overimaginative
translator with the misfortune of being a
disastrous poetaster and limerickster

A quick-step smiling court jester turning
somersaults in passages, grovelling before
supervisors at work, kissing floors, attending
language classes; luckily grown completely
deaf, cannot hear or understand a word

Frozen in shock at depth of inadequacy, lost
hearing and thinking capacity, pain is numbing
my brain, cannot concentrate; this is excellent, I
am as dumb as I’m told I am, and what is even
more gratifying, I feel like dying

Knowing my best isn’t good enough and never
will be, no use trying, after giving my all I am
sent away as an ugly sinner, a low-life under-
achiever expected to die of shame and guess
what – I do feel dead, so ashamed, I am sure

Death’s too good for me, hoped for crucifixion,
strangulation, execution by military fusillade, I
cannot wait to die ignominious death, cannot
contain my impatience to say my farewells to a
world in which I have failed

What release this is, a world cleansed of me, an
evil person, what rejoicing as my lack of work
ethics and moral principles are allayed – how
overjoyed they who worked hard to kill my false
self-esteem, reveal my lack of character

I am happy they’ve succeeded so all can know
how far below par my attempts at posing as a
human being have been while underneath I’m
Machiavellian, a parasite on society, not deserving
life and daylight, only worthy of early death

Oh, what joy to be released from the task of
imitating my honourable colleagues while underneath
I was nothing but a mean and weak impostor
who should have been erased on the day
of birth!