I Don't Know How to Ask

Rano,

Will you meet me just once, please? You're always so distant and cold with me. You never have time to think about whether I'm living or dying.

It's been so many nights now that I can't sleep. There's so much, so many things to say. I won't write about all that today. I won't take up so much of your time.

What good has it done, writing to you? You've never replied, not once. I have to lose to your stubbornness, I always have to lose. If you can, come for just a few hours. This is the last time—will you come?

Messages like this—I've written hundreds, thousands of them over these few years. I've lost count. I never got an answer, not once. I won't get one this time either, I know that even as I write this. You'll never come again, you'll never spare a little time for me, I know it all.

Why doesn't your heart ever soften for me, tell me?

No matter how much I plead, no matter how much I cry, nothing changes. I don't know why the world is so cruel to me. What everyone else gets so easily—I have to struggle so hard for it, or maybe I don't know how to ask, so God just won't give it to me.

Be well, Rano.