After the Storm

 
Since last night till now I haven't eaten anything, yet I am so hungry.
You know, I cannot go long without food, the doctor has forbidden it. But look, you scolded me so terribly... so terribly that I simply cannot bring myself to eat!
I just keep wanting to cry. I cry constantly, endlessly! What kind of foolish weeping is this, tell me! Oh, this foolish weeping just will not stop!
I thought sitting down to pray would calm my mind. When I am deeply troubled, I often do this. I turn off the room's light and sit on the prayer mat. Yes, sometimes I also take my sketchbook, or walk alone to some distant hill or riverbank. These things usually work.
Yet today these remedies lie helpless before you... I think perhaps I still don't know myself completely, it seems that way.


At this moment, in acute pain, it feels as if my throat is choking shut!
I keep feeling you are some stranger to me.
You are someone I have never seen, never touched.
You are not the person whose body's fragrance intoxicates me.
You are not the one whose departing footsteps I counted and followed with my own,
whom I waited anxiously to have near again, with no restlessness,
never feeling that intensity of embracing you after so long apart.
I truly do not recognize today's you. I never want to... know you like this again!


You know, no matter how much pain there is, I cannot simply die if I wish it.
Somehow keeping breath alive, I must fulfill certain duties—
to certain people with whom my bonds are of blood or soul.
Before this obligation, this pull,
all the pain you have given me is utterly trivial.


Sitting on the prayer mat, I made only one prayer to Allah—
that He grant me patience to handle this created situation.
I made no complaint against you to Him,
for one whom you love, you can only pray for, not complain about.
I believe the Creator Himself
does not much like complaints made against one's beloved.
When you truly love someone, you must only pray for them,
keep them in good wishes. Everything else is best quickly forgotten.
After this, I left the prayer mat in mute silence,
leaving a few drops of salt water there as I folded it away.


My feelings toward you are honest, sincere, profound.
Nothing in the world can separate me from thoughts of you.
Yet from today, from this very moment I truly want to be separated!
I want to flee from you,
to flee from these painful feelings you have given me.
I want to flee... from everything I feel surrounding you.


Yet see how I fail!
Wanting to forget your memory for two moments of peace, I came to stand on the balcony.
I find you here too... clinging to every orchid, in every gap of the railing...!
Looking toward the distant sky, I threw out just one question—
Why do all my feelings revolve around you? Is there not one other person in this world to love? After all this pain, all this neglect you hurl at me, still this desire to remain bound to you... why!


To your long letter of complaints against me,
to the intellectualism you practice,
to the consciousness you harbor—I have some questions:
Did you ever truly love me?
Did you ever come close?
Did you understand me even slightly?
My desires surrounding you, my thoughts, and my small dreams...
did you ever comprehend them?... Actually you understood nothing! If you had,
in such harsh language, choosing such terrible words,
you truly could not have given me false accusations or written all that!


What kind of creative person are you!
Who cannot read eyes, cannot read minds!
So much ego, so much pride finds shelter with you, what kind of creative person is that!
If someone loves you, they must swallow a thousand pains,
but if they speak one elevated word to you, you call it mental torture!
—What kind of justice is this?


Loving you, a person will love everything about you,
will tolerate everything about you—then you too must
keep the same thing in mind or sometimes silently accept it.
You know that without parallel rhythm in a relationship, people seek ways to leave!
Today such thoughts have come to me! Yes, I am seeking a way to leave you!
Your half-true love for me has not yet even blossomed,
yet already you have such complex calculations!


I saw you anew, understood you, knew you.
Some things I stored in my head, some in my heart.
Now in every nerve of my body some quiet silence has taken hold.
To move away from you
I have stepped toward boundless distance... for the first time.
Sufficient reason to silently leave you... you yourself have given!


To the boundaries of my obsession-clouded, lusterless eyes
you have given grief's stupor needlessly... a thousand times more than necessary!
Getting over you will not be easy, I know.
Just as it will not be easy... to forget you, to keep forgetting you.
Not loving you is something even more difficult!
Still, I will try... to overcome all this!


Today, receiving this reckless discharge of your complaints,
reading through this procession of humiliation-filled words... I have learned a fitting lesson.
By this, my tenderness toward you, my soul's enthusiasm, beautiful thoughts, purest feelings—
almost all have met their premature death!


Now I am somewhat, emerging from emotion
and seeing you through reality's small window.
The anguish of not seeing you, not having you close, not being able to touch you...
all this is gradually becoming past. These things no longer chase me. Now I have become much calmer... much!
I no longer have any restlessness to have you near.
No waiting for your phone calls, no waiting for a single message.
...Many other things are gone too, which existed because I loved you so intensely!


Now I know you as a different person.
I don't talk much with strangers, I'm leaving.
Before going, I stare fixedly at your eyes for a few moments.
Your two eyes are very sweet, very beautiful. These same eyes have distracted me thousands of times!


In this city... at evening time, in reality's guise, unnecessarily...
sometimes we might happen to meet.
Then perhaps it will be like this—fearing to meet eyes, either you will flee or I will.
In sorrow's smoke, silently some wounds will thicken in my heart. Not in yours.
Countless teardrops will be imprisoned in my dream-drunk, enchanted gaze around you. Not in yours.
In silence's grip, wordless, unsigned affection will remain with me. Not with you.
The scent of separation will linger throughout my body. Not on yours.
...Perhaps even then, in my heart's taste, all hidden love will remain preserved for you alone!


You know, beside loving you I kept no draft of duties,
kept no paper-pen signatures, imposed none of my wishes on you,
never forced you into anything!
I didn't even want you beside my illness.
I didn't want you in thousands of other places where coming might cause you the slightest trouble.
...I only wanted to love you.


So I was saying, beside a love that carries no binding obligations,
don't spend so much intellect, become emotionless, mix in arguments...
and leave complaints—insults, along with some contemptuous words in the inbox.
This reduces attraction and affection for the inbox.
The person kept carefully in the heart no longer seems beautiful.


Even returning to the inbox requires some tenderness.
Without adequate pull of heart, without obligation... I don't return anywhere.
The one whose sight begins my day, ends my night,
not wanting to see them because of their behavior, carrying such a cruel, terrible feeling...
I don't want to die either!


In your writing I found you humane,
you contain all the sky's vastness—such things were scattered there!
In your writing I found you
pure as a bright white punjabi, someone like prayers toward mosque-temple-church.
In your writing I found you bright and luminous like the full moon in deep darkness.
In your writing I found you patient as mountains standing still, surrounded by green foliage.
In your writing I found you like a clear mirror even in the muddy water of the sea's overflowing waves.
...But yesterday, some poison words rushing from your direction
managed to cripple me mentally quite a bit,
and changed many of my thoughts too!


When I was writhing in mental agony, when tears came to stand beside me,
that pain and weeping together understood you exactly like this—
a writer's essence is one way with the written page, completely different with the person!
What we think about creative people or writers may not always be
completely true or correct!


After so long it seemed I had crossed a long dark alley and reached the light!
With the pain, with the tears... even an illusory face faded away somewhere!
And I understood well that you can be loved, but I cannot walk the path with you.
You are now merely a guest who brings sorrow in some dizzy colorful moments of my life!


I will not want you as I did before.
Relationship without tenderness seems lifeless to me, and
with anything lifeless... I cannot live long.
...Stay well.