Cao Bồi

She was reminded of a time when she was young and innocent.
          When the boys of summer were still clean and sober.
          She wanted to ask all the oldest people in the world:
          “Do you have faith in humanity, still?
          Because I’m already drained.”
          This is a night devoid of love,
          Like never before.
          
          I’m done with escapism.
          I’m done with running away.
          Done with booze and this vice city.
          I’ll face this travesty on my own.
          In the end, we’re all responsible for our own demons.
          Tonight I’ll forgive yours.
          
          Death to the idealist, it seems.
          I’ll have to live with that.
          Truth is like the Sun.
          How can I look straight at it without going blind?
          
          You don’t like me,
          You’re just too lonely.
          I don’t want you,
          I just need salvation.
          
          It all started
          And ended with greed.
          An age of enlightenment
          And ego
          And frivolous dreams.
          She had to move on
          Even when the skies had fallen.
          
          I no longer love the way I loved.
          Live the way I lived.
          Fight the way I fought.
          The Golden Age is gone.
          
          I am an island
          Out in the middle of nowhere.
          A tropical paradise
          Of loneliness.
          
          She is God’s lonely woman.
          Fed up with all the men
          And disconnected from all the women.
          Betrayed by love.
          Undone by hatred.
          
          I’m telling you
          Some girls just want to look nice.
          They care not for the boys’ attention.
          But I’m thinking too much about him.
          If only he knew
          I’m nothing but an airhead
          With my sinister demons.
          And I wander the city alone.
          
          “Loneliness has followed me my whole life. Everywhere. 
          In bars, 
          in cars, 
          sidewalks, 
          stores, 
          everywhere. 
          There's no escape. 
          I'm God's lonely woman.”
          
          He didn’t take any toy or treat
          But he’ll take love.
          Look at you.
          Young, handsome and heroic once.
          Just to live in poverty by the river now
          While the politicians dine lavishly in their mansions.
          
          Why do I always think so poorly of myself? 
          He told me once:
          “You should never, ever feel insecure about yourself.”
          But y’know what, my love?
          My mother.
          She makes me what I am.

In the end
          I was consumed by grief.
          I couldn’t save him from his demons.
          And I will forever be imprisoned with mine.
          
          Darling.
          I did not, and will never love you.
          But I need the attention.
          I’ve always been a lonely girl
          So I need all the attention and love I could get.
          And purpose.
          This girl needs a purpose for her life.
          
          There were days when I disregarded youth.
          Would today be one of those?
          When he was here,
          I felt hot.
          I felt alive and desired.
          But son,
          You won’t add a single good thing to my life.
          
          You look at me.
          But he sees me.
          Do you understand?
          No, only I will ever do.
          
          There’s no euphoria, only headaches.
          No more alcohol, there are only demons.
          In the end
          The golden boy got cast out of heaven
          And the outcast girl got to live another day in hell.
          
          Because he was hungry,
          He is dead.
          Was he cruel because he chose to,
          Or because he had to?
          
          The common girl, is the extraordinary girl.
          I am no prude,
          I just deem you unworthy.
          
          Thank God it is here again.
          My 27th summer.
          The sunshine’s like honey, like butter.
          Like warm, silky curtain at the door of heaven.
          And I’m a sex kitten wandering these glorious streets.
          In this valley of memories.
          
          A dark, empty apartment.
          Tube top and leopard panties and cigarettes.
          I have to fight another day.
          For this is a rich man’s war and a poor man’s fight.
          
          In his heart there are only two things for me.
          Lust and resentment.
          There is no love.
          “Behind the veil of civilization and honest work,
          You’re wicked and unforgiving.
          Deserving of everything that came your way,
          Are you not?”
          
          But he has a sea of demons
          And a sky of virtues.
          To this day
          I’m still not sure what to make of him.
          
          I’m still dressing up for a man that is already gone.
          Time has come to pull my head out of my ass.
          Maybe there’s no ideology among men,
          Only interests.
          
          Can I request a world without fear
          Without hatred
          And mad men?
          A brave new one.
          The one I’ve been dreaming of.
          
          I don’t need you.
          I need faith.
          A brave new world
          Where we live free.

Không ai cả:
          
          Tôi: “Bồ đã bao giờ nốn lừng đến nỗi không tập trung làm việc được chưa?”

I’m homesick, mother.
          For a place I’ll never return to.
          We can all love a man to death today
          And hate him to the point of no return tomorrow.
          
          I long for a brave new world
          But I am stuck in an old, dying one.
          I left behind a man.
          I left behind an ignorant, beautiful and innocent girl.
          
          I looked into the mirror
          And it was the same 16-year-old girl staring back at me.
          Time hasn’t changed a thing
          But her face.
          
          But virtue has to wait a day longer
          Because the only man I can almost bear sleeping with
          Is already gone.
          
          For a morning
          Life does feel like a dream again.
          Everything that I remember
          And everything that I have forgotten
          Ten years ago.
          Torment to contemplate
          And clarity to complete the dream.
          It has always been that way.
          Like red and black on the wheel.
          
          They got her.
          They got her, at last.
          
          One day, it would all be over.
          I found myself waiting for the end.
          He died with all the regrets in his heart.
          I live, with all the demons in my mind.
          All the beasts I’ve taunted.
          All the paradise I’ve left behind.
          
          These men, they’re no longer men.
          They are ghosts.
          Cogs in a vicious machine.
          Here we go again.
          “Growth.”
          And then,
          “Profit.”
          And then,
          “Progress.”
          In the end
          I always want to believe we all have a choice.
          
          In my dream there is always a brave new world.
          One man’s heaven is another man’s hell.
          And I’ve seen all these hells.
          I’ve tried to make them my heaven.
          
          Man.
          God.
          Lineage.
          Country.
          
          Man who controls his appetite controls the world.
          Am I God’s creation or the Devil’s work?
          The weight I carry on my shoulders.
          A thousand wailing ghosts.
          
          And I want to tell him:
          “You’re gorgeous, love.
          You’re a beautiful creature.
          It’s a shame
          That you’re such a demon.”
          
          Just because I’m a sex creature
          Doesn’t mean that I will be loved.
          And loved truly.
          I guess in this regard
          He knew more than me.
          There ain’t no “plenty of fish in the sea”.
          Only heartache.
          
          Better girls than me have died
          And worse girls than me still live.
          I am merely a grain 
          In the sands of time.

Whatever heaven that was promised to him was already gone.
          Look at the world that was robbed from us.
          The freedom that was wiped out.
          Where is my brave new world?
          Where is it now?
          
          I remember that girl.
          So prideful, so proud.
          She never thought one day,
          She would become this petty, awful, imprisoned thing.
          
          To have a man that looks like that and looks at you like that.
          It’s otherworldly.
          
          Summer paradise
          And then come the autumn leaves.
          Winter wonderland
          And then comes the dream of spring.
          
          Sleeping with monsters
          Might be what I’m thinking about
          But might have been what you did yesterday.
          There have been days when I feel like I need the whole world.
          Today’s the day I need nobody.
          
          Whether I am a girl in her prime or a man on the wrong side of heaven,
          The feeling is the same.
          I’m walking in the hall of martyrs,
          Knowing there will never be a happy ending after all of this.
          Evil prevails.
          It always does.
          
          The establishment gave you a bit of power.
          And you have crawled your way all the way up here.
          There is no happy ending to this.
          There is no way out.
          
          There is no war but the class war.
          There is no other way.
          Everyday I live life like a coward.
          Today’s just another day.
          
          There are songs where you stop life just to live them.
          This is an American dream squashed by American reality.
          And suddenly, I feel ridden with sins.
          Buried with the demons I know I’ll never escape.
          
          Sweetheart, you and your demons.
          Your faith is weaker than mine.
          You faintly believe in a good woman and a righteous world.
          I bet my life on liberty and a brave new one.
          
          Maybe one day he’ll give you a godly woman.
          But you’ve already had your eyes on a god-forsaken one.
          Nothing’s ever changed.
          
          You and your lies and your façade.
          I know you have your demons.
          I know that animal.
          You can only play the gentleman part for so long.
          Not in bed.
          
          And now you’re gone.
          I don’t know where you’re going to.
          I don’t know how you are.
          You cut deep.
          You were brought low.
          And now you want to restore the glory of the empire.

Darling, I had wanted to keep you pure.
          Why did we have to be this way?
          I’m forgetting about him.
          His image’s fading.
          
          I tried not getting eaten up by loneliness.
          Sometimes I planned a date not because I liked them
          But because I was lonely.
          He doesn’t have time for me, love.
          I am my own company.
          Some questions will forever be left unanswered.
          
          Believe it or not
          His lust makes me feel alive.
          Tonight I look like God crafted me for carnal desires,
          And carnal desires only.
          But there’s no man to satisfy the thirst.
          
          Boys grow up.
          I don’t.
          I don’t believe in the change of heart.
          
          There’s always a bigger wolf on the highland.
          Now you know, sweet’eart.
          Sometimes the man who acts the most nonchalant
          Is the man who breaks the hardest.
          
          The mediocrity’s caught up to her.
          All the anxiety, all the disappointment.
          She was the daredevil.
          She was the dream.
          
          His eyes were sharp.
          His skin was like dark caramel.
          Life was so simple for such a young girl.
          But alas, I am no longer one.
          
          The real kingpins stay in the shadows.
          We’ll never know their faces.
          Their tentacles reach us, shackling our lives.
          It’s all about money, in the end.
          
          If you’re rigid,
          You’re a dead girl.
          If you’re not adaptable,
          You’re dead.
          
          Some girls live in heaven.
          Some girls live in hell.
          I know he’s a scumbag, sweetheart.
          But he’s the only one that makes me feel alive.
          The rest of them
          Are just indifferent boys.
          
          Sure, he’s cruel.
          But by circumstances.
          You would have been much crueler, walking in his shoes.
          
          She wouldn’t have cared if the lightning had not struck her.
          The class war.
          The poor.
          The working man.
          What ideals have you taken on this time?
          What a fraud.
          
          In summer I look better clothed.
          In winter I look better naked.
          But whatever happens,
          In this heart,
          Summer never ends.
          
          You girls get a new teenage heartthrob.
          I get the same old broken man.
          But whatever happens,
          I’ve yet to meet an immortal man in this life.

Lord.
          Why did you let the boys die young
          And the rich get richer?
          Why did I have to sacrifice my life?
          
          I know he always appeared all decent and righteous
          But he had a hidden animalistic side.
          I had felt its soft growl.
          I had seen desires through his gaze alone.
          
          A year later,
          Finally I could envision sleeping with him.
          But he’s already gone.
          He’ll never know what I have become.
          
          Something ain’t right.
          All this acceptance.
          All these broken dreams.
          But luckily,
          Some men will stay forever young in our hearts.
          
          Every man has his greed.
          And every girl has her dream.
          “Why on Earth would you do that?” I wanted to scream in his face,
          Knowing I would do the exact same thing if I were him.
          
          Foul men.
          Helpless little boys who refuse to grow up.
          An obnoxious girl guarding her virtue.
          Life is a show that keeps on giving.
          
          The Renaissance.
          An Age of Enlightenment.
          We’re all trying to escape our mediocre, mundane lives.
          
          I want to lose it.
          I want to live.
          I want a worthy person.
          I want to become a worthy person.
          Why would God let me see a glimpse of paradise,
          But never giving it to me?
          
          No matter how powerful you are,
          We all bleed red.
          Cold, hard cash makes the world turn.
          I see its shadow everywhere I go.
          I watch it turn men into beasts.
          Righteousness into oblivion.
          
          I can’t carry my fear into the realm of consciousness.
          I can’t carry mediocrity into the kingdom of heaven.
          
          I have fallen for these dreams since I was a kid.
          Heroism.
          Freedom.
          The deep blue sea.
          
          Life could have been a dream
          But you lack the guts.
          I’m a girl with my principles.
          Do you really think you could buy me?
          
          There will never be better days than now.
          It is great
          Knowing that I will be forever 25 in his heart.
          It’s either all lives are equal
          Or nothing.
          
          There are a billion girls in this world who dress modestly 
          Because they have to.
          There are a million ways to make my life worse
          And you’re one of them.

Thời gian qua đi, bố yêu.
          
          Dù cho có khoác lên mình lý tưởng nào, con đều cảm thấy vỡ mộng khi ánh đèn đêm vụt tắt. Tầng lớp cần lao, cho đến khi ngồi với tầng lớp cần lao. Hóa ra chiến đấu vì bản thân mình lại là điều tốt đẹp hơn cả.
          
          Con từng cảm thấy nực cười với những cô gái quá đề cao trinh tiết của mình. Nhưng, con là một trong số đó, bố hiểu không? Khép chân lại, luôn luôn, như thể đang canh gác trữ lượng dầu khí quốc gia trong thời chiến. Và người ta đang đập cánh cửa: “Tại sao các người có thể làm điều đó với chúng ta?”. “Cho những tháng ngày tốt đẹp hơn, ta thề.”
          
          Con làm điều này bởi vì con không thể tin. Khoe khoang món quà của Chúa, nhưng vẫn là đứa con của Người. 
          
          Con khinh thường những người đàn ông. Họ là sự phản chiếu của một thế giới không bao giờ được như con kỳ vọng. Họ là tấm gương phản chiếu những đêm trường vĩnh cửu trong con.
          
          Bây giờ con là một kẻ mong manh yếu đuối. Nhưng con không bao giờ từ bỏ những trang giấy mục. Con muốn trở thành một cô gái đẹp, sống trong một căn nhà đẹp, sống một cuộc đời đẹp trong một thế giới mới quả cảm. Người ta sẽ không bao giờ hiểu sự dằn vặt của con.

Tôi ở trong tiệm cắt tóc: “Không. Được. Cắn. Bắp. Tay.”

“When there's nothing left to mediate
          You take your coat and you close the gate
          And you grow your hair and branches long
          And you lose your days in the LA sun.”
          - The Midnight