No, I have not loved you with such calculation and thought. Rather, you could say, without thinking at all, I loved you simply because I would love—that's how I loved. Whether you would ever love me back, believe me, I never thought even a flicker of that—neither before loving you nor after.
That to love one must receive love, must give it, that without receiving love goes nowhere or goes somewhere—I refuse to think even this much. My mind doesn't stretch so far. I lack such devotion, beloved. Love through discipline, winning you, not winning you—I understand none of this, believe me.
I have never wanted to bend you to my will, nor do I want it now. Such a thing is impossible, absurd. I am a free soul, and you too are free.
You have a separate life—how you are in that life, what you do, how your days pass, I don't know. When you weep your heart out, when you feel the urge to love deeply, when you long to walk alone across some distant border, when you want to call me close, seat me beside you and gaze at me tenderly, when you claim a balcony for yourself and lose yourself in the fragrance of wind, when you fall asleep unknowingly while writing page after page, with that sharp ache beside your neck, in the thick of night, whether you've ever woken and searched for me, whether in fever's haze you've wanted me beside your pillow with a cool wet cloth, whether at the dinner table, eating crisp-fried neem leaves with salt, you've ever felt like calling out, "The salt's too little today, you know!"—none of this do I know! I never wanted to know; it's not that I never felt the urge to know, but still—I never asked!
I am never there through all your hours—I've never wanted to claim you so completely as my own.
The sense of possession troubles me, makes me guilty. "I love you infinitely more than anything else!"—being able to say this much is possession enough for me! That's it, just this much!
Yet one secret wish always surrounded you in my heart: that you would possess me, never let me go, torment me, burn me, hold me to questions... that you would think of me as yours—this I always wanted.
I wanted this because I love to feel safe. You had said, "More than anything in the world, more than anyone, I am safe with you, against your heart." To me, that assurance alone was love.
I believe you, trust you from the depths of my soul. I feel your presence, I can taste it; in it I can lose myself in peace.
I could never give you such pure feeling in return, so possession troubles me, makes me guilty of white sin.
What people say I don't know, don't want to hear. What you say, I listen to that, want to hear that. I make mistakes, make them constantly, this I know. But I never made the mistake of loving you—questions fall silent here.
If there's one most righteous thing I've done, it's being able to love you. This fills me with pride, I am addicted to you. What you were, how you are, how you will be—I have loved you exactly as you are in all these forms, and will love you so. I never drew any boundaries around you for myself.
Reading you I grow restless, reading you I find peace; diary pages now remain untorn, letters now stay safe.
From you I learned to write, I learned to speak, to think, to taste life, to practice devotion, to be fulfilled, to feel. I have accepted you as my guru, embraced you with my life.
No hesitation, no doubt, no questions, no narrowness, no burden of right and wrong, no touch of sacred and profane, I know no pure or impure, seek no calculations or measurements, I understand no society or family either.
I know only this: I have loved you.