Drink my blood: A short history of Venezuela’s oil
An unhealthy relationship with the Devil's excrement
I feel their heavy boots trample me. A stampede of nationalism -now, we’re going to develop the country, they say-, while they clench my throat and try to rape me with their steel tubes.
Finally, I ejaculate, a burst of semen raining on dictator Gomez’ face, sprinkling onto foreign powers.
I nurture them, I let them milk me. Greedy teeth nibbling my bursting veins, sucking my heart.
They will suffer. They will see the devils that harvest my soul.
There will be celebrations, they will rejoice; in the end they will all dress in gold. They won’t see me leading them to the black hole, mixing their blood and bones to produce a putrid liquid.
I am a plethora of possibilities. I am freedom. With me, there will be no restrictions, no morals. They will ponder every possible thought, they will do anything to drink from my mouth. They will betray, denounce, torture and kill; they will always come back for more. I am the perfect barbiturate.
I will spy on them. I will lurk, slithering under their feet, buried under immense layers of dirt. They will feel my presence, the magnet of riches luring them, a siren’s chant:
-Why don’t we have more money -they’ll ask out loud-, why don’t I have a bigger house.
I’ll wring my Mephistophelian beard and feed them drops; they’ll rejoice. There will be international investors. I will create employment at their politicians’ will.
Nations will parade and applaud this country, sometimes respect will even be sincere.
I am a spear, a diplomatic weapon. Meeting rooms will tremble, I will buy allegiances to keep the machine oiled up and moving.
The orgy will last centuries. I will create huge lagoons of tar where they’ll bathe and quench their thirst. Bodies will wallow and roll about making love in my mud of combustion and gluttony.
One day, I’ll expire, spent; pale and incapable of pushing the windmill. They won’t accept it. They’ll try to reanimate me, introducing tubes in every inch of my body.
When they desist in their desperate torture of my flesh, they’ll never be grateful. They won’t look back on the bygone era with satisfaction and pleasure. They will never recognize their privilege.
While I wither and dry out, I can’t stop thinking how clumsy and short-sighted this group of people has been, these people gathered here, in this piece of land that wears the scar of the Orinoco River scratching its Amazon forest.
*Translated from “I killed Simon Bolivar”.