A state of mind called 'you'

 
These past few days I've been telling myself that the desire to call you "you" — intimately — will remain forever just that: desire. Among all the longings we must live with unfulfilled in this world, perhaps even die with unfulfilled, I can clearly see that the list of eternally unmet desires has grown a little longer now.


I saw you the other day — you'd gone somewhere with your wife and child. By some river. In a boat. Having such fun with them, even drinking tea from the roadside stall. I saw it in the photos. All I can do is look, nothing more.

Meanwhile, evening darkened in my room, night fell. From morning till night, you sent no message. You came online, but didn't even read my text.
I saw on your wall — you were so busy with your family. I was looking at each photo, one by one. I always love seeing you and everything that happens with you. Yet somehow, I don't know why, that day my heart began to race! I've always known I have no jealousy in me. Yet even in me, jealousy began to gather. Can you imagine!
In one photo your wife stands holding your hand. Just one photo, nothing more! The simple act of holding hands — yet this very image is shattering my already broken world even further! I want to wrench her hand from yours right now, this very moment, to drag you away to me! The photos wouldn't let me remove her hand from yours. Another unfulfilled desire added to my list.


Watching you two together, I don't know why the pain kept growing. So I covered her side of the photo with my finger and zoomed in on you alone, thinking: this face, these eyes, these lips, these cheeks, this forehead, this chest, these feet, this stomach... all of this is mine, entirely mine, no one else can have even a drop of claim here — you are completely and utterly a person who belongs to me alone!
The next moment I moved my finger to see your wife beside you. Now fixing my gaze on her, I think: these hands touch you every day, these eyes get to see you first thing when they wake. You hear this voice daily, this face is before you each day.
I saw then how helpless I felt, how destitute, how empty, how utterly alone.


Thinking all this, my sorrow multiplies, my suffering doubles and redoubles into millions, and in my silent city some nameless tornado is tearing apart and carrying away the thatched-roof shelter built from my great sorrows.
I kept thinking: why isn't this person mine from beginning to end? Why, when it comes to having someone, are there so many barriers of society, religion, custom? Why can't I touch like that just because I want to? Why can't I plant a kiss on this person's cheek on a whim? Why isn't love alone enough when you want to live your whole life beside someone in your own way?
Why does my morning begin with such emptiness? Why does my night arrive with such pitch darkness, accompanied by a loneliness far vaster than the entire earth, climbing up my neck to my eyes and staying there for eternity? Why aren't you there in this night's solitude? Why, when I wake at midnight with sleepy eyes, must I embrace a mass of loneliness and emptiness instead of you before falling asleep again?
Why aren't you there in the single point of firefly light piercing this night's emptiness? Not on this side, not on that side either... nowhere are you!
...Yet why can she touch your face, cheeks, chin, chest just by turning from one side to the other? She gets it without wanting, without even asking, while I lose everything despite wanting so much!


That day, I don't know why, I closed the doors and windows, turned off the lights, pressed my face to the place where you lie and wept in torrents. I buried my face in the pillow and lay face-down, sobbing aloud. That whole night I cried and cried.
Why did I cry like that? Because she touches you? Or because I can't touch you? Or both?
I kept wanting to run and grab your shirt collar, drag you to my broken room, sit you on the bed, bury my head face-down on your knees and cry for hours. Cry with shouts, cry my heart out... I'm not saying this just because I feel like saying it — I truly want to do this!


I can't bear it — I can't give anyone else your share! If anyone touches you even slightly, with hand or gaze, my heart absolutely refuses to accept it. Yet look — I who have no greed for anything in this world am becoming increasingly possessive and terribly covetous when it comes to you! I've never told you about this greed. When you're in front of me, I never remember to tell you anything.
I want to tear through society's rules, leap over religion's barbed wire, take you far away, very far away to some Sahara desert or some lonely sandbank where we can build our own private home. Our simple house would have the strain of poverty, yet it would be packed with love and well-being.
...Before loving you, I never thought about anyone with such depth.


Just the other day you sent a text: "Then, should I leave you to let you live?"
You don't know how much I cried after reading that message.
The moment I read it, my heart shuddered. I felt like you were plotting to leave me, like you were breaking up my household and disappearing from far to farther into the void, like my life was tearing out of my heart, and I was forcefully pushing it back into my chest with my hands!
I was thinking: such power in one small message! You want to leave me to save me, yet you never once considered — you alone are my survival! You don't know, you are my entire household!


That day my hands and feet trembled with fear. Fear of losing you. Yes, fear of losing the one I'll never have in this life!
I closed both eyes and imagined what it would feel like to live without you.
I closed my eyes. I saw a deserted island. To its right stretched a vast desert, to its left a wide sandbank, above my head the empty sky blazing with sun, and under my feet the heaving ocean. In the middle of all this, I stood alone... as if no one else existed anywhere. If I tried to step forward, I'd splash and sink somewhere! Reaching left — nothing there, reaching right — nothing there, looking up — nothing there but me!
In this swaying state, I seemed to wander down some dark alley path, pushing through loneliness, getting lost somewhere! I was searching for myself... searching frantically, but I was nowhere to be found.
That day I understood: I am no longer mine — my existence has merged with yours, my survival depends on your staying. This "I" no longer belongs to me alone; here, in every pore, your dictatorship has conquered my entire world!
I opened my eyes. When I opened them, I saw my chest was wet with tears. Water had rolled from my eyes, touching and flooding my chest — I hadn't even noticed.


Just thinking that you're leaving — that I could shatter so completely and sink in an instant into such depths — will dawn ever break in my world again, the day you truly go away?
That very day I decided: I will stay with you. Let there be no household, let this relationship have no name, let there be no domestic life — what does it matter? In all my not-having, let only you remain. Life is only a couple of days anyway — the rest of the time will pass just fine!
That very day I decided: I will study again. I'll study well. I'll build my own career. I'll live in good health for many years. I'll grow old with you with many happy memories. Holding your hand, arms around your neck, chest pressed to chest, I'll challenge this life to let me be happy just once — and challenge society too!
...Will you give me a little space in that chest? I've been burning fiercely since birth, every moment turning to ash from burning. I'm a failed person who has mixed my color with the color of suffering to survive. Don't cast me away — I beg you, please save me!


The love I've wanted to receive all my life — that love I will give to you.
The person I've searched for frantically for myself — I will become that person for you.
The world I kept myself alive to see — I will create that world for you.
The dream I live in fear won't be fulfilled — I will touch that dream for you.
The life that existed only in my imagination — if I have you, I will live that life in this very life.
...After all this, won't you stay beside me, becoming my intimate "you"?