"The tobacco shop" by Alvaro Campos (Casa Fernando Pessoa, 2023)

This is a 7 page poem written by Pessoa - I'm nothing./ I'll always be nothing./ I can't want to be something./ But I have in me all the dreams of the world...
Today I'm lucid, as if I were about to die ...
Today I'm torn between the loyalty I owe/ To the outward reality of the Tobacco Shop across the street/ And to the inward reality of my feeling that everything's a dream ...
I see the clothed living beings who pass each other./ I see the dogs that also exist,/ And all of this weighs on me like a sentence of exile ...
I put on the wrong costume/ And was immediately taken for someone I wasn't, and I said nothing and was lost./ When I went to take off the mask,/ It was stuck to my face./ When I got it off and saw myself in the mirror,/ I had already grown old ...
I light up a cigarette [] And in that cigarette I savor a freedom from all thought./ My eyes follow the smoke as if it were my own trail/ And I enjoy [] an awareness that metaphysics is a consequence of not feeling very well.// Then I lean back in the chair/ And keep smoking.