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I do not know if the world has lied

I have lied

I do not know if the world has conspired against love

I have conspired against love

The atmosphere of torture is no comfort

I have tortured

Even without the mushroom cloud

still I would have hated

Listen

I would have done the same things

even if there were no death

I will not be held like a drunkard

under the cold tap of facts

I refuse the universal alibi

Like an empty telephone booth passed at night

and remembered 

like mirrors in a movie palace lobby consulted

only on the way out

like a nymphomanic who binds a thousand

into strange brotherhood

I wait 

for each one of you to confess

—Leonard Cohen

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