Bonsai of Thoughts: Two Hundred Fourteen

1. You get exactly as much
as you're willing to pay for.

2. I must be mad!
That's why I keep forgetting my hurt
and want to see you again!

3. Would you meet me for a while?
In this rain? At some coffee shop?
You do so much for strangers—
perhaps today you could think of me as a stranger too!

Will you meet me? The rain is falling...

4. In the rain
there's either the steam of coffee,
or of cigarettes.

5. Shameless opportunists make the powerful their relatives or friends to serve their own interests.

6. When people fall in love, everyone becomes a guardian.
Then
all distances seem long,
every moment feels fraught.

7. Those who don't know how to love
turn into thieves
those who do love.

8. When the shoe on the foot looks up at the cap on the head,
it sees only dust and mud there.

9. If you harm people, you'll be punished.
If you help people, you'll certainly be punished.
If you neither harm nor help people, you're mostly safe.

10. One who came seeking nothing
has nothing to lose.

11. One whose poetry
no one seeks out
is no poet!

One whose poetry
is found before being sought
is no poet either!

12. I go searching for water.

Then...
trampling some grass and flowers
at the bottom of the bucket,
I return with water.

13. At some point people stop truly loving anyone, they only want to receive love.

With age, love diminishes and greed grows—greed for affection, for tenderness, for love...
Then the craving to receive love becomes sharper day by day than the ability to give it.

14. With merit, you can reach many people. Without merit, you spend your days in regret. That's the rule.

15. What punishment did You receive
for creating us!
What humans cannot do,
we do even that in Your name!

16. One who seeks reward
in destruction and death—
to them, life or creation, love or logic
are all trivial.

17. One who can do
nothing themselves
incites others!

18. How can you fight a crocodile while in water?
...By becoming a bigger crocodile.

19. No one misunderstands you.
Actually, no one has time to understand you.
Misunderstanding only comes
when someone tries to understand you.

20. One who is honored at the office
as much as they're dishonored at home—
why should they return home at all!?