Beneath the Melancholy Sun

  
 How much tenderness I feel for you—
 I cannot quite explain it to you, just as I cannot explain this love!
  
 In the terror of COVID-nineteen
 I cannot sleep at night now, and forget about day!
 I've sat at my desk with a strong mug of tea,
 laptop on, staring at your photograph.
 Looking at myself, I think:
 I am unemployed now, I have no work left but loving you.
  
 I understand that in this world the unemployed love
 with far greater intensity—
 caught in the talons of busyness, love is forced to become calculating.
  
 Half-finished tasks are scattered throughout my room,
 yet I feel no urgency to organize these waiting chores.
 Though I'm in such a hurry to love you,
 I no longer enjoy looking at you.
  
 I want to curse at you,
 I want to punch you in the nose,
 I want to pull and tear the hair from your head.
 I want many other things too, which would anger you if I said them.
  
 I don't want to anger you now.
 If I die in this pandemic,
 if I don't get another chance to ask your forgiveness...
 So I refuse to die having caused you pain.
  
 You tell me, you call trying to make me laugh.
 These days you say you find me melancholy!
 Strange! How could you not find me melancholy?
 Suspected corona patients, suspected of breathing troubles—
 sick people are getting no care. In this state, at this moment,
 the chance of proper treatment if I fall ill is slim.
 I'm assuming I won't get any! If I'm sick,
 not one person, near or far, will come to see me. Not even you!
  
 Ah, love! This is worthless love!
 Because of some COVID-nineteen, no one loves anyone properly anymore,
 everyone loves only their own breath!
  
 Listen, stop trying to make me laugh.
 You're in greater fear of death than I am,
 and that's why, since this disease came to our country,
 you've been running away from my sight for so long!
 The possibility of our meeting in this lifetime seems very slim.
  
 Don't go crazy watching movies at home,
 keep track of when the world will heal, and of me sometimes too.
 You know that frightened version of yourself—
 I love her so much, so very much.
  
 Every day I pray for you.
 Stay safe, stay home, stay in your mother's care.
 Pay attention to your health, take care of your heart.
  
 One day this pandemic will end, you'll be free from captivity, the world will heal.
 Live beautifully even then.
 Remember: if I die from the wounds of these dark times,
 I'll come back as a ghost and torment you still,
 I'll remain in your imagination, in your thoughts.
 I will love you, wherever I may be!
  
 I haven't told you—
 I've bought myself a set of burial clothes,
 who will bury me, only Allah knows.
 This pandemic has shown us how inhuman,
 merciless, and at the same time helpless we are as people.
 How fragile all our beliefs and pride!
 It's very difficult to survive by keeping faith in humanity!
  
 I no longer enjoy writing to you or speaking to you.
 Now I will sleep under a melancholy sun,
 beside a newborn turtle on the seashore.