Women, by and large,
cannot take directness at face value.
Wrap the same words in a bit of twisting, a little coaxing, dress them up in strategy, and suddenly it works. No matter what women say out loud, they cannot bear honesty. Women are terribly childish. If you want to be dear to a woman, you must coat your words in lies. That’s why deceivers rank first on women’s list of preferences. To women, liars are the true lovers. Most women are born with a talent for being deceived. Women tolerate hypocrisy to get emotional love, while men resort to hypocrisy to get physical love. In this twenty-first century, how long does love last? Only as long as women’s emotional needs and men’s physical needs are being met! Yes, there are exceptions. Those kinds—they’re hard to fool. And here I am, thinking about you without even getting the emotional love I crave. What do I want? I want to forget you. But I can’t bear this unbearable love anymore. How will I forget? When? After you marry? Will I be able to? Please, don’t marry. Let it stay like this. Don’t think I’m asking you not to marry just for my sake. You are not mine, and you never will be—that’s fine. But you are not anyone else’s yet, and just being able to think that gives me such peace! I want to live in this peace forever. What a strange creature I am! Just moments ago I was so worried about your daughter, and now I want you not to marry at all! Where would your daughter come from without marriage? Absurd, utterly absurd! See what a tangle my thoughts are in!
You know what the truth is?
There’s so much I want to say to you. I want to pick up the phone right now, wake you from your sleep, sour your mood, spoil your morning. But I have no right to do that! If you hang up on me once, I won’t call again. A thousand times my heart might plead, but I won’t. I’m afraid—what if you come to hate me? You don’t have to love me, but please don’t hate me either. I know that much for certain. But you’re annoyed with me, aren’t you? I don’t even want to be the reason for your irritation. I don’t want to be anything to you at all. So why do I keep writing all this? Do I only want to love you? I don’t even want to speak my love aloud. Then what is it I want? To love you without needing love in return—is that it? Well, yes, there’s a peculiar joy in loving alone. In the privacy of your own heart, in whatever hidden chamber you choose, you can play games with the person you love without them knowing. You have no idea how much I play with you, how many scenarios I conjure. Sometimes I wonder—when you’re giving a speech, standing hour after hour, words pouring out endlessly, and then you’re laughing without pause for the photographs—how do you manage it all? I can feel it, you know. How much your hands ache, your feet, your face. When you come home and rest your head on the pillow, lying there in the quiet, you must wish someone would massage your feet, press your temples, work the tension from your jaw. Someone who would place a hand on your chest and ask, does that feel better? Don’t you wish for that sometimes?
And I think—oh, if only some supernatural force could place me beside you in that moment, I swear to you, I could be your greatest comfort. I could wrap you in such safety and ease. I would convince you that it’s all right, that even if you talked all day long, it wouldn’t matter—because at the end of it all, I’d be there waiting, holding nothing but peace and rest for you.
On the days you have one of your motivational seminars, I find myself wishing I were there too. All day long I imagine it—you saying this, saying that, laughing in that bright, tinkling way of yours. Then deep into the night it hits me: God, how exhausted you must be! And I find myself talking to myself in the dark, saying, “Come here, let me massage your head a little. Come on, let me ease all that tension from your neck—you’ve been standing with a microphone in your hand all day. Your neck and head must be completely stiff, haven’t they? Let me fix it all for you, you just close your eyes and rest.” Perhaps by then fatigue has finally claimed you, given you some sleep, while worry keeps mine at bay. I don’t know how to explain to you this strange kind of compassion I feel. If you were here with me, I would bring you every kind of relaxation this world has to offer. You finish one event and the very next day you’re jumping into your car for the office. The thought of it makes me shudder. I pray—I actually pray—”Lord, let him reach safely. Don’t let him fall ill.” So many people pray for you, and you’ll never know it. I’m begging you, don’t carry so much stress. Your age is only increasing, not decreasing. There’s no one there to look after you properly. Sometimes I think—even if just to have someone care for him—shouldn’t you get married? You work so hard, and you deserve to be cared for, don’t you? I can’t do much anymore, so no matter how much it costs me, I want someone to come into your life. Someone who’ll understand all your responsibilities and take them on. I just want to see you smile—that smile of relief, just once.
It’s Friday today.
Where are you? Still in Rajshahi? Ugh! You were active just eleven minutes ago. How strange!
Where are you? At least get some sleep today,
will you. Do you have to wake up this early every single day? And the moment your eyes open, Facebook? No delay in opening your eyes, but none in logging in either. What’s in it for you anyway? It’s unbearable! You’re unbearable, your Facebook is unbearable, your showy little lovers are unbearable! Look, you’re active again!
Believe me, I keep my chat list open all the time just to spy on you. When you come, when you go, which day, what time, how long you stay—I know it all by heart. Girls have a thousand eyes like flies, and I have a thousand fly eyes. How will you escape me? See, active now. I feel like snapping at you hard first thing in the morning: why did you wake up from sleep at this hour? What’s the work? Facebooking? Chatting? Flirting? Is someone waiting in the chat room for you? How much do you sleep anyway? Doesn’t seem like much, honestly. Do you still have to follow that childish six-hour principle of yours? Why so little sleep now? Stand in front of the mirror once and look at yourself! What did you eat last night? If you woke up this early, aren’t you hungry? What will you eat now? Or will you just go back to sleep without eating? Ugh! I’m dying of worry here, and what are you doing there?
Do you even know? How would you? I’m not even on your mind anymore. Yet look, ever since I started this endless rambling, I can’t stop. I don’t even know how to stop. I just know I have to keep my eyes on you. As much as I can,
however I can. I have to ask about you,
I have to keep track of you. No matter how much you’re sick of it, I can’t give this up. Let me do at least this much, don’t forbid it, don’t be so cruel. I feel you far too much. If only I could slip inside you once! Don’t be afraid, I’d come right back out, because I know
there’s no place in there for someone like me. Yet why does the heart always run toward the impossible? Who knows? Be well, please! Be very well. I love you so, so much.
I’ve drawn love
in all its many shades. Will you see? Look.
Untouched
love. Shadowless love. Faded love. Colorless love. Soundless
love. Pallid love. Worn-out love. The shadow of the rainbow turned inside out. Not the seven colors of love,
but love in zero color. Chromeless
love. Motionless love. Unspoken love. Blurred love. Incomplete love.
Unseen love. Unfelt love. Meaningless love. Mirage love. Lightless
love. Tear-soaked love. Unknown love. Strange love. Blind, unreached, unreachable, wordless love.
All my unspoken
unheard unmisunderstood love.
……………You alone.
The Colors of Love
Why are they fading, I wonder? Strange, isn’t it? I fell in love all by myself, I’m hurting all by myself, and now I’m forgetting all by myself! But am I really forgetting? What’s the point of remembering, of holding on to memories? Who am I supposed to remember? Someone who never wanted to know me, never wanted to at all? I don’t know where he is, what he does, what he eats, where he lives, how he lives—I know nothing—yet I think of him all the time. So when did I forget him? Is this love, or just memory? What is this? If I could have him close for even a moment, I’d hold on and never let go. But that hope is nothing but dust. So what am I supposed to do? How far will I go carrying this invisible weight? Why am I doing this for one man? Isn’t the world full of celebrities? I’m not like other girls, obsessed with famous faces—so why did I become obsessed with him? Or did I fall in love with him because he’s different from the rest? Or does he only seem unique because I’ve fallen in love with him? And thousands of other girls want him too, so why do I love him? I can’t even bear it! What can I do?
I want to ask God so badly—those souls sent to this world only to receive love, how are we supposed to love them? What’s the way to love them so that they’ll love us back? It hurts so much, and still I cannot forget. Forgetting seems impossible now. How long can I go on remembering like this? I see him every day, and he feels new every day. He says the same thing over and over, and yet that same complaint delights me every time. Just like a wife, just like a husband—you see them every day and they never grow old. A mother stays a mother, a father stays a father, and they’re never old to you. That’s why love is one and only one.
So many crushes,
what I felt for them was mostly infatuation, but this—this was my first real brush with love,
and I’ve become utterly undone by it.
I don’t think about anyone else anymore, don’t even want to. Yet here I am, reading every word this person has written with such complete absorption,
parsing their messages, listening to their old videos on YouTube over and over—they never feel stale, I never tire of them. I dig through their profile, scroll through their old posts and photos countless times. If only they knew even a fraction of this madness of mine, how I spend my entire day with them in my own way, how they’ve become the god of my soul, how I offer them all the riches of my heart as tribute. If I’d devoted just 5% of this attention to my studies, I’d be the top girl in my department.
Nothing on Facebook excites me anymore. A single meaningless line from them appears more vivid in my heart than Jibanananda Das’s most beautiful poem. Everything else feels like straw next to their words. I don’t know why, but it seems no one else on this earth writes well anymore. I scroll past hundreds of posts without reading, just skip, skip, skip. But the moment I see something from them—that’s all I need!
I dissect it for hours. I imagine meanings they never intended, and in my mind I make them think thoughts I’ve planted there. They already exist inside me, so what’s the harm in imagining them however I wish? The version of them in my head is so much better than the real one. I keep my wall filled with their posts, always marked ‘Only Me.’ How much longer will I keep doing this in secret, who knows? Will I never tire of this? Is my tiredness slowly draining away from me? But as soon as I sit down to study, sleep comes calling! Yet if I’m reading about them, I could go centuries without sleep and sail right through! Tiredness is relative, after all. It’s all in the mind.
When will I stop all this madness about them? When they get married?
Then what on earth will I do?
What are you doing? At the program? Standing there since morning, talking away? I can see you clearly. Everyone’s looking at you, aren’t they? Are you searching for some beautiful girl in your mind?
It’s half past one. Have you eaten anything? You know what I think when you’re having one of your career discussions? I think, this is it, I think he’s found her—some exquisite creature, some sweetheart, a wife perfectly suited to his taste. Some beautiful woman will come up and ask for your autograph, take a selfie with you, and leave your heart in turmoil. That’s it! The story’s done! And then you’ll go running to confess your love. She’ll say yes. Or she’ll come running to confess hers, and you’ll say yes.
Will you really say yes?? Oh God! Please, let that never happen! Thinking about all this is destroying my mind. My chest wrings itself, crashes like helpless waves. Why am I suffering so much? The photo you sent yesterday—a face covered in beard, and yet what a smile! Ugh! I can’t erase that face from my eyes, not for a moment. Those eyes of yours could kill someone just by looking. Can a girl really go so mad for a boy? Believe me, I used to think girls who lost themselves over boys were mentally ill. So many movie and film heroes—girls cry for them, cut their wrists, tear at their skin for nothing. I never understood why they did it. I used to think, why would girls do such things? That’s what boys do!
Believe me, there are countless boys who’ve done the same for me—I can’t even count them. Now I wonder, did they feel about me the way I feel now? The truth is, unless you go through this yourself, you can’t understand how someone can feel this way for another person. Did I hurt them without knowing it? Is that why this pain has come back to me? Believe me, I’m suffering terribly.
I’m not cutting my wrists for you, not taking sleeping pills, not doing anything dramatic. Everything is happening inside me. That’s even more painful. It can’t be spoken. It can’t be borne.
My Feelings
My emotions have lit a torch of suffering inside me, burning me alive, strangling my breath. Right in the center of my chest they keep striking me, again and again, with something I cannot name. I don’t feel pain, but the anguish—God, the anguish is so unbearable I think I might die this very moment. Have you ever known suffering without pain? It’s worse than pain itself. I’d rather have my limbs torn off than endure this. How much longer can I live like this?
I haven’t known you long. Not long at all. Yet why am I doing this to myself? Out of nowhere, you posted those photographs of beautiful books, and I simply lost my mind. Lord! If only I could have you in my life, I could drown in an ocean of books forever!
I hunt through bookshops searching for the books you recommend. I can’t find half of them. Oh, if only I had you, I wouldn’t have to exhaust myself like this. Can I call you “you” now? I cannot—for the life of me—understand how cruel you are, how utterly heartless. And here I am, a useless wretch, unable to torment you relentlessly. If you told me straight out to stop all contact with you, where would I go? What would I do?
You’re a master at saying things bluntly! If you pushed me away, I couldn’t survive. That fear is why I don’t torment you, why I let you be. Doesn’t your heart ache even a little for this madwoman? Don’t give me your love—I’m not asking for that. Just let me see your face once. Meet with me. Let me touch your books. Please, why are you doing this? Keep me in your house as a library girl! I’ll work, I won’t need a salary—just let me see you and your books, that’s all I ask. This mad creature loves you so much! No one will ever love you this way, I swear it!
There. I’ve said “you” enough.
Taaaalllll……do you see the fun in talking to yourself like this? Could I ever say these things if you were standing in front of me? When you’re near, my mind stops working properly! I can’t even speak, let alone look at you!
I will die,
truly die. Let a few more days pass. Let there be talk of marriage in my house, and you go ahead and marry, and then one day I’ll simply vanish and never return.
I’m thinking, the next time I go to the village
I’ll jump into the Padma. Or else, I’ll drown myself in the Milk Lake at Harichanda Thakurbari. Our Harichanda Thakurbari has two enormous ponds.
One is called the Milk Lake, the other
the Lake of Desires. If you dive into the Lake of Desires, you get whatever you want, and whoever has nothing to desire bathes in the Milk Lake. There’s worship every Wednesday.
Devotees go there every day. Have you heard of the Baruni bath? Will you go one day? Come on! It’s such a place of peace. You needn’t be afraid. I
will dive into the Lake of Desires and never ask for you. I’ve already received you completely without having to ask for you at all—
how many women live with luck like mine, tell me? I can spend the rest of my life with just this much, this fragment. A successful half-life is far better than a failed whole one. Thank God for that. But as long as I can, I’ll live with this feeling soaked into my bones, my mind, my heart, and then I’ll dive into the Milk Lake and never surface again. I’ll sink. If God is a little merciful,
if He lifts me up. Then
yes, may He give the rest of my years
to you—that’s my last wish. I’ll make an offering for that and then die. I’m remembering my older sister. I’ll tell you about my sister another time. That sister is gone, dead. Ugh!
Who can I tell? Someone who will never listen?
How strange I am! Idle, purposeless, rambling on with nonsense, complete foolishness, scribbling away and wasting paper. These writings—you’re far from it, but there’s not even a close friend to whom I could give these to read and lighten my burden. There’s no one to share my pain with. I’m just that unlucky. I go around telling everyone about you all the time. I tell this one, I tell that one, I tell myself, I tell the whole world by the collar, everyone—only the one person I should tell, I cannot.
Damn it, I’m just a ready-made piece of worthless nonsense!
Believe me,
I don’t have a single person in this world
to whom I could tell them about loving you. There’s not a shred of proof
of my love anywhere. All I have is this diary, God, and another account where I spend the entire day stuffing your pictures. A picture arrives and that’s all it takes. I download it, keep it there. And I look at it every day. What else can I do, tell me! It’s too risky to keep them in my phone’s album. This is all the proof I have. You want to know why I can’t bring myself to tell anyone?
They’ll all say the same thing to me. That I should tell you.
That’s just not possible. Everyone will push me to take the risk. Something I could never do. Rather than die hearing ‘no’ from your lips, it’s better to fade away slowly, alone.
When someone has a terminal illness, do they just drop dead on the spot? No—they carry the pain and somehow keep breathing. They swallow medicine knowing it won’t work. Love is a terminal illness too—the most certain, the most lethal. So let me be like one of those afflicted patients and not even search for a cure. I’ll live without medicine. What’s the harm? No one knows anyway
that I don’t exist anywhere in your world. I don’t want to invite their words, their pity, and double my suffering for nothing. I can’t anymore. A boy in a white shirt—his image has scorched my eyes. It’s been like this since forever, till now. My prince, my dream prince, whom I love more than anything in this world. You don’t know how unbearable it is to not turn your eyes away from someone you’ll never have. When someone who isn’t yours stirs a storm inside you, do you know how helpless that feels? That pain—you’ll never know it. I won’t tell you either.
Hey, you!
Hey! Haven’t you stopped talking yet? How many words does one person need to say? How much talking do you enjoy? But you never talk to me! You rotten boy! Did you eat lunch? Go on now! Give your phone a break too. Give me some peace. When I find you waiting online, I can’t help but think you’re talking to some witch! I want to just grab her and throw her away. Give me some relief, won’t you! Nothing feels right. I’ve started scribbling nonsense again. Why do you have to be so disobedient? Disobedient in real life, disobedient in my head. You don’t eat properly, don’t sleep properly. What am I supposed to do with you? I’m not feeling good about this. I miss you so much! Every other moment I’m running like a madwoman to your profile. There’s nothing new, but still. I can never think of you as old. Every single moment you appear fresh in my mind. I can’t even enjoy reading anymore—you walk into every book. The heroes in books, they all seem like you. Why does this happen?
I want freedom from this restlessness. I want to forget you. Please, just go away. Leave my mind, leave the courtyard of my heart. I don’t want you, I don’t want to love you. I don’t want anything to do with you. Just get lost, please!
# Look at the state I’m in! What did I write on the last page, and what am I writing on this one! I’m completely half-mad! Or is it wholly mad? How much madness does it take before you’re certified fully mad?
Is there an instrument to measure madness? What’s it called? Where do you get one? How much does it cost? I’ll buy one. I’ll measure my madness. I’ll measure how much the mercury of love rises and falls with my insanity. I’m going to cry now. You’re probably still holding that cordless thing, fooling around with it even now. What do your other heroines do? Let them all die! What about me? You wretched boy! I want to pull your cheeks. I want to punch you in the belly. I want to grab you and yank. I want to shove you off your chair. I want to bite the tip of your nose. I want to pull your hair. I want to kiss your eyes by force. I want to wrap my arms around you tightly from behind. I feel like doing all these things—what am I supposed to do?
Listen! Come here… just hold me for a bit, please! Don’t let even a drop of my tear fall on that finger of yours! Just hold me for a moment.
Never mind, you don’t have to do anything. Nothing at all—just place your hand on my head. Please. My head’s been throbbing for such a long time. I don’t like complaining to anyone, don’t feel like sharing with anyone, don’t want to tell anyone anything. I can’t bear anyone. Only music. Right now my whole life revolves around you and music. Hearing you talk made me stubborn about music. Every time you talk about passion in those career discussions, I keep thinking that music—only music—is my sole passion. The Shawshank Redemption says, Get busy living, or get busy dying! I tell myself, Get busy loving, or get busy singing. All I can think is, will you never listen to my singing? Will I never be able to show you even one performance? What will you say when you hear my voice? You once said that any girl who can sing well must be respected, because to sing the way she does takes at least ten years of practice. I’ve heard you say this countless times. The first time I heard it, I felt like I was floating on cloud nine.
Hey! You do eat cloud nine, don’t you? My chocolate-boy only eats chocolate. I booked chocolates from so many places for Valentine’s for you, and yet the time still hasn’t come for you. Will we never see each other again? If we meet once more, I’ll bring all those chocolates for my little one. There are so many things I’ve planned to buy for you, but you keep saying you’ll come and never do. You’re awful. Maybe someday you’ll suddenly say something, and then I won’t be able to buy anything. Last time I sat waiting for you for a month and a half with that mug and ring. Ugh! Waiting for you makes me feel—why is life so long? I love buying you these silly little things! I hunt high and low for the most quirky, absurd things for you. You’d have so much fun seeing them. Just the other day I found this Minion toothbrush holder I absolutely loved. Whenever you’d see it, no matter how foul your mood was, it would cheer you right up. But what’s the use of buying it? Later I’ll realize—if I tell you I want to give you a gift, or if I say I’ll buy you something, you’ll stop coming altogether.
All right, go on then. Let your marriage be settled, and I’ll see to it that these things are handed over to your wife’s keeping. For now, I’ll give you only chocolates. But tell me—did you throw away that mug I gave you? And the key ring? Or did you misplace them somewhere? Don’t you use the ring at all? I had your parents’ photograph printed on it, and you don’t even use that? You can’t always make it home, I’m sure there isn’t a single framed picture of them in your room either, which is why I got that mug made with their photograph printed on it. Whether you drink tea or coffee or milk—surely you can pour a little water into it. At mealtimes, you’d catch a glimpse of them all! I’m not asking you to remember me, just—glance at your own family once in a while, between work. That’s why I gave you the mug. And yet now it seems to me that those things are probably buried under dust somewhere. You’re so terribly busy, you don’t even have time to take care of yourself, and these are just trifling gifts after all! Well, if you don’t use them, if perhaps mountains of dust have accumulated on them, there’s no harm in that either—and yet there is, isn’t there? The crests you’ve earned from your career conferences—you do take care of those, don’t you? Those you keep safe. Those are everything. All that effort, going to different universities, giving lectures—if there’s even the slightest recognition of that work, it’s in those crests. After your books, if you keep anything with care, keep those crests. They are the brightest witnesses to every achievement in your career, shining as brightly as you do. Keep them organized, please. I don’t have the fortune to organize such things myself, so I’m asking you to do that work. They are treasures beyond price, gifts of God’s blessing. Your rightful honor. I believe it, and I will go on believing—one day you’ll receive a far greater prize.
You, this all-rounder of mine—will you never call me again? Never come to me again? I don’t even have a memory of you to hold onto, I’m such a fool. Never took a selfie with you. Never asked for your autograph. I go to see you with a whole speech prepared in my head, and the moment I lay eyes on you, everything vanishes. Last time I thought, when I’m leaving, I’ll hold your hands for just a moment. But I didn’t even do that. Your whole demeanor was putting me in such a foul mood. Here’s a girl sitting right in front of you, and you’re acting like some wooden plank? That’s what I kept thinking to myself. It hurt so much that I said nothing more. You’re absolutely rotten, you know that? I should learn from you how to avoid people so smoothly, so effortlessly. What a wretch! And yet, here I am, thinking about this wretch all day long! Why do I think about you? Why? Whywhywhy??? Will we really never see each other again? I won’t be able to give you chocolate? If only my sisters would come back from America! Whatever chocolate they bring, I’ll give you half of it. If needed, I’ll go wherever you are and hand it to you myself. I can see you. I see you so clearly. Not in photographs, not on Facebook. You’re right here, right before my eyes. You’ve become the screen of my vision itself, imprinted there forever. You’ll never fade from my sight again. One coating on that screen, one image, one form, one reflection. And that’s you. The light doesn’t need to change. You’re so luminous on your own that wherever you appear, you glow with your own radiance. You’re my burning flame of fire—in my eyes, on my face, in my chest, in my heart. You are my Whitehole!
When my heart grows too heavy, I sit alone and look at your photograph. And it feels like you’re right there—so close I could reach out and touch you. Your smile brings me such peace. In those moments, I’m convinced that God crafted you with extraordinary care. I look into those intoxicating eyes of yours—that stark contrast of black and white—and I think: here, in these eyes, one could find the truest blacks and whites the world has to offer. I’ve never seen such pristine white sclera framing such a profound, unbroken arc of black. It’s like a single dark rainbow suspended in white, and your pupil dances within it. I’ve searched long for some flaw, some imperfection to hold onto, but I found nothing. Instead, I lost myself in that deep, dark iris. If someone were to show me the textbook definition of eyes—of perfect white sclera and perfect black iris—I would unhesitatingly point to yours. The power that lives in those two eyes, you yourself don’t even know it exists. Whether you glance without reason, or look with intention, however you choose to see—my skin rises unbidden. Why does this happen? Tell me. I’ve never witnessed such perfect white and black in anyone else’s eyes. It’s as if two colors are locked in an eternal contest within the same socket, competing to see which can shine brighter. That interplay of white and black—does it bewitch everyone it falls upon? I haven’t fallen for you. I haven’t loved you. I fell for your books. So where did you come from, then? I could write down everything I feel about your books, but not today. Today, your eyes have intoxicated me. Why are your eyes so beautiful? Did you know, before now, that inside your eyes white and white and black wage a silent, ceaseless war, hidden from all others? Two colors. Two territories. The white gleams as fiercely as the black gleams. When you look into your eyes, what strikes first? The sclera? The iris? The pupil? All three burn with equal brightness. The black glows. The white glows. Then what captures the gaze first? There’s such enchantment, such radiance in your eyes that one cannot look long without consequence. And if you do look long—you know what happens? Death, or madness. Certain. This is the first time I’ve felt that a boy’s eyes could be this beautiful. I’ve loved before, believe me, but I’ve never felt a boy’s beauty resonate from so deep within my soul. Oh! What an exquisite crush mine is—I want to embrace him the moment I see him. Yet if someone asks me what exactly is beautiful, what draws me in, I truly cannot point to anything specific. Because it’s just—a sudden liking. And it’s just as suddenly gone. All that remains is the memory: I liked him once. Nothing more. It isn’t love. But you—you are the feeling of my heart, my personal analysis. If someone asked me to do a PhD on every aspect of a single person, I would choose you without hesitation. I understand you better than you understand yourself. I think of you constantly. You are my daily routine, my homework. Stopping myself from thinking of you is impossible.
Just a while ago I was furious. My head was on fire over something or other. Then I looked at your pictures on my phone, and I sat down to write.
That’s all it took! My mind has grown calm now, slack and easy. I’m smiling. You’ll never know the magic your pictures hold—but I do. The way you quiet my mind! I am grateful to you, truly. Thank you. You have filled my life to the brim, overflowing.
Your books, your words, your writing, your thoughts, your conscience, your mischief, your riddles, your jokes, your teasing, your fooling around, your eyes, your smile, your way of walking, the way you look at things, the way you move your hands, your brilliance, your anger, your pride, your grace, your ease, your sense of humor. In all of you I love to lose. That is my victory. I have lost myself in everything about you. Till now I haven’t found myself again. The strangest thing is, I’m not even trying to pull myself out of it all. Secretly, in the depths, I’m sinking into some vast ocean—and I’m not trying to surface, not trying to escape. And your sense of humor? I could surrender myself to that completely. With someone who has humor like yours, you could talk all day long. There’s something about it that grips me, holds me fast with such force.
How is it that I disappear into everything about you, vanish, become invisible? No one can find me anymore.
Oh, if only I could show you the feeling of that very moment! How it feels—so much discomfort, such helplessness. Something is gripping me day by day, consuming me, covering me over. I’m just holding on with all my might, writing through it. But only God can see—can see what shroud, what enchantment, what illusion is spreading across my entire body.
Thank God these feelings remain invisible, unseen. Only God can witness another’s dreams, their thoughts, the hollow stare in their eyes—otherwise I would have been exposed long ago. And then there would have been no choice but to end it all. Sometimes I think it might not have been such a terrible thing to do. By denying humans this one small power, God keeps us all perpetually punished. If such feelings were suddenly visible, no one would ever dare to love in secret again. Look at you now—I don’t know where you are. Perhaps you’re in some meeting at the office, terribly busy. And yet I feel you inside me. You flow through my veins mixed with my blood, moving like a current through my body. I am content enough. So why do I feel so unwell? How much longer must I carry this life like this? There’s not even a shadow’s shelter of another person in my existence. Yet you claim to move through my body. I don’t know at what speed your face, your feelings, your smile attack my mind constantly. I don’t know how fast they enter my thoughts or how fast they leave. Is this a chain reaction, or something like it? Once such a reaction begins, it never truly ends. But this reaction that’s started in my head because of you, because of your name—will it ever end unless you end me? Radioactive reactions don’t cease their activity. Some residue always remains. Even if your reaction fades from my life, will you not leave some trace behind? I’m afraid. I’m truly terrified. I know this terrible radioactive reaction inside me won’t take much longer to finish. Very soon there will be an enormous explosion within me—the reaction will end, and I will end with it. When? When your wedding happens? Yes, I think so. That day I will be utterly finished. But even then, won’t your trace remain in my life? Won’t I be unable to forget you?
When I see your wife standing beside you, shouldn’t I simply forget you? Does love concern itself with propriety and impropriety?
Will I truly go on like this—this madness? Can I? Won’t it destroy me? I can’t even bear to think of that destruction. Yesterday someone tagged you in a photograph with a girl in a hijab. The moment I saw it, my chest seized. Who was she? What was she? Why was she? I couldn’t make sense of anything. But before I could, your hand caught my eye. I saw how tenderly—with such infinite gentleness—she nestled against your left chest, cradled in your left arm. My breath stopped. Even now, as I write this, I cannot breathe. That image keeps returning, again and again before my eyes. The way your five fingers hold her so softly, and that smile spread across your entire face! In that expression, I saw every joy, every comfort, every shelter, every tenderness, every reassurance this world has to offer. I never imagined you could hold a girl like that. Why did you hold her that way? In your arms, against your chest, I can only picture your mother. The thought that anyone but your mother could rest in your embrace makes me physically ill. To even imagine it—that comes later. I cannot. I know perfectly well that she is your sister, someone you cherish deeply, that she loves you with a pure love, that she’s a devout girl who wears the hijab—and yet, not for a single moment could I accept it.
There were so many others around you. Had I been there, I don’t know what I would have done. I cannot even summon the courage to imagine myself in that place, and yet another girl has casually claimed her space there. How am I supposed to accept this? What awful, vicious torment and hunger kept striking me, kept biting me—if I could only show you even a mark of it, surely you would shudder! I fear blood. I fear corpses. I fear human suffering. Any creature’s pain terrifies and wounds me deeply. But now, more than all of this, I fear the news of your marriage. You are the moon in the sky—I love you even knowing I cannot have you. But if you marry, what becomes of me? Then I won’t even dare to look at you in secret! I know my love lies at your feet. Neglect has numbed me now—it no longer hurts. Every gift, every scrap of kindness you’ve shown me, I keep treasured in my heart. I fear any stranger appearing beside you. The moment any girl stands next to you, I could turn her into my enemy without hesitation. Before I see it, before I hear it, before I understand it—let me go blind, let me go deaf, let me go mute, let me lose the power to move. How good it would be to die. These days I think of death as a neighbor. Reach out my hand and I could almost touch it. Call it and it would come—I’m sure of it. You won’t come. But death—death will certainly come. It’s so much mine to claim.