My country, without justifications sinks... I have voiced, whispered and even shouted in countless ways what I perceive and feel in this bizarre present and this why I should not and cannot silence. I don’t assent to injustice, apathy, deceit or hypocrisy and because of that my chest explodes in fire. I live in a depressed, tired and cornered country in which, gagged, we are forced to shut up and accept lies and false and unfounded acclamations.

I have clearly and repeatedly pointed out my feelings for the rescue of peace and freedom. In return I hear shrieking, vehement, dissonant voices but also shocking stories of grief, torture and death. Anguish and helplessness is what I see in every face. Bewilderment and uncertainty flood the air and you can feel it sprouting like tears, like sweat emerging from the pores of the skin. Confusion and uncertainty is reflected everywhere, no matter whether they are supporters or opponents of the government, those two words are engraved on their foreheads and in their eyes.

Panic in the depths of the night thrust me back to weep for my country. The smell of revenge, teargas and hatred, permeates through the walls of my skin. Every day and every night, chaos is called to battle. No place for peace, serenity or tranquility. Lives fall as slabs on the pavement. Blood and tears are shed for a yearning, for the desire for a future, for a longing for harmony and brotherhood. However much I, we, want to understand and reason we are immobilized in body and soul.

Time is an enigma; seems eternal, it shudders with pain, a pain that no longer pleads, that is not embraced, that is not moved, which has been defeated by indifference!

Blindness, indolence and ignorance suffocate people with perks and crumbs resembling to what the conquerors did to the people of our America centuries ago; mirrors exchanged for gold. No, things have not changed in 500 years; today mirages are given in exchange for freedom, trickeries in exchange for peace. Oh my people! The awakening will be much more painful and severe ... for there will be more suffering and tears.

The sun goes down and I try to understand the dying heartbeats. Too much punishment for reasoning has been in this eternal night and it shudders in the graves of the meek.

A few meters away I see a Venezuela that does not surrender. The outcome, another body lying on the pavement. Indifference and hatred has settled in the hearts of the rulers who rinse their hands with the blood of its own people, trying to break their spirit, their aims, their hopes...

Again, tears flow from my eyes....

Tired, I find myself torn; I live in a harsh reality and an immense void caused by this inferno.

How sad!

Venezuela, the country that liberated and gave freedom to five nations, that was an example of solidarity, an example of democracy, who unconditionally helped brother countries that had been brutally assaulted by dictators or foreign intervention, did so without pursuing or seeking advantage or profit. Today, that same Venezuela that opened its doors to those who were harassed and helpless is now being handed on a silver plate to be bounded and sacrificed!

Today I live the shame and pain witnessing an America, which was not Bolívar’s dream, which turns its back to a whole nation for a handful of coins and for ideas that died and were buried in the dust of history. These "brother countries" consent and justify the savagery of a regime that converts the blood and the future of their own people into their own benefit, power and wealth.

How sad, what a shame!

© Noris Roberts

Caracas on the twenty ninth day of April, 2014