Contemplative Bonsai: Sixty-Three

1. One day you will wake to find no one beside you.
That day, even if you return home late at night, no one will ask you anything—you could even choose not to come home at all, and no one will demand an explanation.

What will you call this day?
Freedom? Or solitude?

2. I keep asking to meet again and again.
It's not that I feel no shame.
But sometimes the heart grows restless, and refuses to heed shame.

3. When there is no meeting of minds with those in your own home,
becoming a guest in your own house is only a matter of time.

4. Yes, one day you will go there.
But right now, you are here.
Isn't this time beautiful too?

5. The goodness of the heart matters far more than the chastity of the body.

6. At day's end, returning home, I long to see the face of someone who, to me, equals the entire world.

7. My peace costs far more than your opinions.

8. I told the ocean, "In this cruel world, I am utterly out of place. My heart is too soft, like water."
Then the sky laughed and said, "That's exactly why you're here!"

9. Once they were there. Then every day seemed beautiful.
Today they are gone. Now nothing in the world seems beautiful anymore.

10. I could never tell you how many times a day I wonder where you are, what you're doing, whether you're well!

11. If you don't know how to give respect,
don't come before me claiming love either.
To me, love is far more trivial than respect.

12. That heart of yours—
apart from pumping blood, what else is it good for?

13. Give me your sufferings.
Give me the burning in your heart.
I have learned to live in darkness.

14. You have felt it too, haven't you?
I speak of those feelings
that feel good to carry in the heart,
that feel good to receive even when they cause pain!

15. I had told you,
I know how to live even in sorrow!
But what you heard was,
I only know how to live in sorrow!

16. All my life I've been waiting at a station
where I know nothing—which train is mine, when it will come, or whether it will come at all.

17. After my death,
write something beautiful on my grave.
In life, I received nothing but suffering.

18. Know this:
one day everyone understands everything.
That day, perhaps there's nothing left to do,
but they do understand.

19. Before you block me, please let me know in your inbox:
why didn't you block me all these days!

20. Always remember this:
people far more talented than you
work the fields and sell peanuts on the street
for lack of opportunity.