I did not become what you expected –
I became everything you had feared –
you let me grow up
sustained by your privations.
you raised me with hidden tears –
raised me
to live your life – continue it –
shall I say:
that is how you lived; you did right –
so it must be good to live like that.
shall I?
or shall I kill the hope you have?
tell you, that I did not turn out like you –
that my world is a different one than yours,
my joy,
my pain a different one than yours –
will you believe my thanks to you?
my thanks to life?
or will you say:
he got everything,
he took everything from us,
and gives us nothing in return,
except sorrow and disappointment.
I know, you are right, when you say that.
I think, I am right, when I go to my own country.
but I go hesitantly –
I go slowly and heavily –
but I think, I must go.