Futile Offering

In the desolate silence of this sorrowful necropolis...
Against your ribs, my refuge has grown quite solid;
I have discovered what truly brings me joy—
My soul begins to find peace only when...I am writing;
All my feelings are concentrated in this act of writing—
Where all the melancholy notes merge powerfully with these words.

I did write some letters—
But could never deliver them to you.
At the time it seemed this might be the only way to express what I felt.
Only much later did I realize—
Those were nothing but cheap emotions.

What I wrote to you...could you ever truly feel it? Ever?
Though perhaps knowing the truth of this isn't so important.

Looking beyond these easily available phrases—
Your unseen pages are actually my life. In your busy life, or in the folds of books...
that you touch each day with such care...
where is there any place for me in that wonder?

I am nowhere—in an instant, a gust of wind shattered and scattered all feeling.
Every time you broke down the door of the self—
I remained absorbed in creation, touched you deeply—
This can never be art, this is merely helplessness.

Shubhra! Only in this one place have I stayed so close to you, for so long...
Slowly I have touched you for hours, in terrible anguish!
Only you could know all this.
But still, knowing so much, not once did you ever hold my inner self deeply!

Yet how terrifyingly intensely I have loved you!
Suddenly, I conceived a self-destructive plan—it took me many days to gather enough courage for this.
But no one learned of this plan of mine, not even you.

I am not in favor of torturing myself to death—isn't that natural?
But a peaceful ending could happen, couldn't it?

Shubhra, see...one day everything between us will be set right—so much resentment won't remain accumulated, we won't have to wait for such long periods...
But on that day, resting my head on your chest...I don't ask God for the chance to weep peacefully, how strange!

Notice how the distance between us has suddenly lessened?
Because this distance no longer torments me.
This same me who was so afraid...
of losing you;
even to keep myself the slightest distance from you...for how many days I felt suffocated, I couldn't tell you...
You never wanted to know; how could I tell you!

'Love'—the word itself is so overrated! Don't even bring this word to your lips.
I know you certainly don't know its meaning. Why worry so much about it?

I never want to love you again—in the end you'll say..."What you did, you did for yourself, loving me...you kept yourself well."

Is that really so? Can one keep oneself well by loving someone, Shubhra?
It seems to me that when you love someone...
you must live only in their good or their bad—where you don't exist, not at all!
In their absence you must keep yourself in sharp pain...until your sighs grow heavy!
In this case, choosing the agony of death might be easier.

Still, excessive love lived without 'expectation'!
Nonsense! That's exceptional; surely some isolated exceptional incident can't be ideal.
Have the rules of love changed to keep pace with the times? Who knows!

I laugh terribly these days—when someone says, I love...
Like I said, it's overrated!
And why make such a fuss over just this one feeling?
Look...sadness, failure, shame—why doesn't anyone talk about these precious feelings?

Keep them to yourself, no one wants to hear these...
But who wants to hear that you love me?

Well, is there some special joy in becoming accustomed to hearing the word 'love'? Ridiculous!
I've heard some people know how to love very well without adequate emotion—this species is apparently placed in the category of mature people! Ha ha ha! Is this even possible?

"Everything is possible, dear."
Even at the touch of someone close...terrible love comes rushing in, throughout the body...
This, I hear, keeps both body and mind satisfied and lively for a temporary time.

This thing is quite good—how close two people can be, or how close multiple people can be! Really?
How deeply is it possible to touch and stay connected this way? Unknown.
Don't waste time with that spiritual talk—this medium is basically the determination of love through the body's help and undoubtedly recognized.

There's nothing discouraging about this—using just this one body, how many people can you love? I mean, this is also a kind of experiment. Updated love! Uh...!
There's also a concept called one-sided love; think of it as being able to feel the power of love from a distance.

However, seeking out and finding these rare species of creatures is quite difficult. Because think about it...they're doing the noble work of loving from afar for life, there's no harm to themselves in this—rather, benefit...
No, no! Benefit meaning profit—keeping oneself motivated by loving another!

However, for creative people, love works quite favorably.
I'm remembering right now a piece of music I absolutely love—a famous song by John Denver—You Fill Up My Senses...an extraordinary creation written imagining the most beloved person!

When tiny ice crystals fell on him, he wrote this song imagining his beloved; so it can be said that love has its own invisible power!
Again, even keeping oneself in pain, one can feel the beloved—there's a demonic joy in this. Time has preserved many such creations—which we received only through separation.
Actually, this is not the separation of two souls, but worldly separation—choosing a melancholy life as an alternative to maya in time's cycle.

Even if love isn't kept alive, it lives on—in some other tune, some other charm, some other touch, if not in you—in some other world.

Shubhra, you know, I am terribly tired today...today when I touched you—an impossibly beautiful pair of eyes multiplied the torment in my brain...

What are you saying! Such riddling talk creates unbearable terror inside me.
You want to know what happened to me? But you have no right to know today. Why are you trying to come so close to me today—and with such caution?

I have decided to remove myself so far from you—that you'll think...I never even touched your shadow!

The more I feel an unbearable sharp pain inside my chest—the more desperately I want to hold you tight;
The day that pain suddenly grew intense, I didn't let you understand—yet how terribly close you were lying to me!

No way, I don't want to live being a cause of your worry...you take care of yourself instead, stay well.
And why do you come here regularly every day? This place isn't very convenient—insects gnaw away at the flesh of the chest.

If possible, throw these rotten flowers on the ground, like how our accumulated moments have faded.
I can't bear you anymore—your tears are like futile offerings in my prayers.