Thought: Eight Hundred Ninety-Seven ……………………………………………………… One. You know, these two days I've been fevering, and though no one else asks after me, one person does. During office lunch breaks, upon waking in the morning, returning home, before going to sleep...almost constantly checking on me. I could not love him! Because I cannot love everyone. Yet once I do love someone, I don't forget them easily. This man knows my favorite color is black. Now he's had a blazer made in black, his shirts are black too; for my sake this man has bought himself an entire wardrobe in black! Everyone at his office asks, "Boss, what's gotten into you! Why all these black clothes?" His simple answer: "Black clothing brings such peace, so everything's black!" I met this man again in Dhaka, in some terrifically busy restaurant, amid terrible crowds...he sat across from me and said, "I still love you terribly, terribly. You never wanted to understand my love! What harm would it have done, if you had understood!" I saw him gazing toward the glass, looking outside. So I said, "Why are you looking outside...when I'm right here in front of you!? Are you avoiding me?" He replied then, "I don't have the strength to avoid you!" I immediately shot back, "I can tell you've come fully prepared today...to defeat me with words!" His answer: "Defeating with words, and every other kind of victory, you can easily achieve with me, because I love you!" He lit a cigarette right there in front of me. Asked only once, "Do I have permission to smoke in your presence?" I said, "Can't you do without it?" His answer: "If I quit smoking, will you be mine...for a lifetime?" I didn't feel like saying anything more. I don't know why! I fell completely silent. It seems the Creator has sent us without either the strength or courage to reject selfless love! So sometimes, even when we don't love back, after witnessing intense love we fall silent...though you are an exception in this regard! Two. How deeply I can feel you, you don't know. If you knew, you couldn't speak that way. How much I hold you within me is also beyond your imagination, which is why you can torment me so, prodding and poking. How dear your face is to me, you cannot even guess, and that's why you can pass years upon years without meeting. That your touch is balm for my heart's pain—this profound truth you have disbelieved again and again, yet I know how many days I've languished in heartache, missing your touch! You know none of this! You know nothing of my heart's condition. If you knew, you'd be astonished. I too chose not to say more, didn't try to win you back. What good would telling these things do to someone who can harbor such neglect in their heart! How foolish it would be to reveal one's heart to someone so indifferent to another's feelings! That's why I said nothing, didn't try to bring you back. Could I really have forced you to return? Does such force have any power at all? Don't be hurt by my words. Sometimes I ramble a little incoherently, then I recover again. When you've driven someone mad, you must occasionally endure their madness, mustn't you?
No fear, I won’t ask you to return anymore. There’s no time left for returning anyway. I just wonder if, on these winter nights, groping through memories, am I the only one who feels so alone?
Three. One should never ask too many questions of anyone. Take this, for instance — I never ask you: How are you? Where are you? Have you eaten…
I know you are well. If that’s the case, what’s the point of asking!
Or maybe you’re not feeling good right now. If that’s the case, what’s the point of asking if I can’t make you feel better!
When someone is truly close to you, you never need to ask questions to find out what happened all day, how they’re feeling, blah blah blah…
I know that a person who trusts me deeply and holds me close will surely come to me in their times of sorrow, moments of dejection, periods of restlessness, and tell me what has happened and what hasn’t.
I never have to go to them and ask… what’s wrong?
Yes, many people leave their countless stories with me. I am trusted and beloved by many. Only to you am I nothing!
Four. It’s raining outside. Can you see? I know you’ve seen it, or you could just look up and see it instantly if you wanted.
Tell me, have you ever looked into these eyes of mine and seen how much I’ve wept just for you?
Do you understand what waiting means? Have you ever wondered why I waited for you with such restless eagerness for all these years?
You weren’t with me, but my heart was full of you.
You’ve taught me tremendous patience! With that very patience I spent all this time with you!
You’re not like the other people in the virtual world — just a pastime for me. In real life, you are my one and only beloved. I’ve had to pay a heavy price to accept this truth.
Five. Suppose a person is weak for you. And from beginning to end, you are utterly harsh toward that person!
We haven’t come to this world for infinite time — we’ve come for a limited time.
One day, the person who was weak for you moved far away from you. Do you know what happened then? You won forever.
From beginning to end, the victory is yours. That person also let you win. You too remained steadfast in your decision from start to finish. So who won? Of course, you!
Irritation, love, neglect… these are all different things.
The one who keeps letting us win, not thinking of us as competitors — we end up winning against them! What kind of victory is that?!
You can only give neglect to someone who has made you their entire world. You cannot call upon some random person from the street, or someone who doesn’t even love you, and give them neglect — even if you wanted to. Not by force either.
You always say many things about love. Your logic is as correct as it is true that the love of the one who loves you is also not false!
Thought: Eight Hundred Ninety-eight
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One. Every relationship has only one rule: either stay, or leave.
Don’t give pain,
don’t take pain.
We haven’t been sent to this world with lives long enough to survive by enduring pain after pain.
Two. The person who doesn’t take responsibility for your happiness—don’t ever turn back from the path that makes you happy, thinking ‘What will they think!’ In the game of running out of life, only value those who value your happiness. Know this: everyone else is worthless in your life.
Three. Whether you’re doing well or poorly—no one really thinks about it. The question “How are you?” is itself a kind of pretense. And the answer “I’m fine” is an even greater pretense. We ask after the welfare of those we couldn’t care less about, and secretly hope they won’t tell the truth but simply say, “I’m fine.” If we heard the truth, we’d rather be annoyed, because we have neither the time nor patience to listen to the sorrows of those who don’t matter in our lives. So never burden someone who doesn’t know me, who has no obligation to give me time, by forcing them to listen to my sorrows.
Four. Never think that if you don’t get so-and-so in life, if you don’t marry such-and-such person, you’ll lose your mind, you’ll die! More people in this world have died slow deaths or committed suicide after getting the person they wanted than those who killed themselves for not getting them. When you don’t get someone, many things seem possible; when you do get them, all the ugly truths emerge one by one. Mutual understanding generally remains wonderful only until you actually get it.
Five. With talent, you can reach many people. Without talent, you must spend your time in regret or envy. This is the rule.
Six. After enduring much suffering, happiness comes to life one day. Alas, by then many of those people are no longer beside us—the ones we wanted to be happy with. Finding beside us on happy days those we want to be happy with is a matter of great fortune.
Seven. For those whose only medicine for every ailment in the world is paracetamol, arguing about the source and cure of your illness—forget arguing, even talking to them is nothing but a waste of time.
Eight. There are three types of people in the world:
Those who only do useless things, never anything useful
Those who do some useless things in order to do useful work
Those who never do anything useless, only useful work
Note: The third type aren’t really people—they’re dragons, fire comes out of their mouths!
Nine. It would be wonderful if heaven introduced a “common sense quota.” This would allow many to live in greater peace, because then the number of people trying to drag others along to heaven with them would decrease somewhat.
Ten. Brother, when I’m no longer here, won’t your heart ache for me? For instance, when you’re about to embrace someone tightly and caress them with intense passion, won’t you suddenly remember that there was a girl named Muna who used to hold you just as tightly? Will you ever feel that no one has ever rested their head on your chest loving you as intensely and deeply as Muna did?
Eleven. Those who cause the most damage in this world are the ones who make you think: I could have gotten by perfectly well without meeting such a person!
Twelve. Let us have at least this much sense: I shouldn’t go out of my way to give advice to someone who, if they needed advice, wouldn’t have come to me in the first place.
Thirteen. Some people are one hundred percent knockoff Chinese goods! To keep yourself well, always stay a hundred yards away from them.
Fourteen. Being good doesn’t guarantee you’ll be loved. Most people love bad people, keep dreaming of making them better, and keep on dreaming, so they suffer greatly. The problem is, they mistake this suffering for love itself. But at the end of the day, suffering is merely suffering, never love. But who will make them understand this harsh truth! Such people seem born to suffer. No, I misspoke! No one is born to suffer, but some don’t want to remove their suffering or don’t even try properly. Many, of course, can’t manage it despite trying. They have too much compassion. The compassionate one suffers, while the one shown compassion thrives.
Fifteen. Being unemployed without education is far better than being unemployed with education.
Thought: Eight Hundred and Ninety-Nine
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One. If you want to live, do what you need to do.
If you want to be well, do what you want to do.
Two. That someone loves you is not your fault; just as your loving someone is not their fault.
Three. Always finish your pending works to motivate yourself for more works.
Four. Listen, you must never love me, just try to understand me a little. I alone will do the loving…
Never go against your own heart to do something for me that causes you discomfort!
Your wellbeing matters to me.
Even if you forget me completely, I won’t mind at all. Even if you never call me, I won’t hold the slightest grievance.
Just show yourself to me now and then—seeing you brings peace to my soul. Perhaps we won’t have the chance to meet in the future, but when an opportunity comes, we must seize it…you know this!
I ask nothing of you, just understand me a little…
Hey, do you have a terrible headache? Come, let me massage your head.
Feeling utterly exhausted? Come, let me make you a cup of tea. It will chase away the weariness.
Do you need peace? Again I’ll say, come to me, you’ll find peace. There’s no peace in inboxes, only misunderstandings.
Well, is your heart terribly heavy? Come to me. Come, chatting away will lift your spirits.
There’s much I can do for you, but you must give me the chance, mustn’t you?
Don’t go out unless absolutely necessary. The corona situation in the city isn’t good. All my thoughts revolve around you. Please, don’t scold me. I will worry about you.
Are you alright?
No, I mean I worry so much, don’t know why. Don’t ask me either, because I don’t know the answer.
Yes, I worry terribly about you. Perhaps you don’t feel the same about me. What can be done?
This is selfless love, so I no longer calculate or wonder what feelings you have for me!
The restless turbulence that keeps rising and falling in my heart—you don’t understand an iota of it, yet you occupy the entire space of this heart.
To me, loving you means…loving you with everything about you.
When you remain silent like this, storms rage within my mind.
Again and again I find myself thinking—have I made some terrible mistake somewhere!
Your silence burns me fiercely!
When you look at me with those wide, wide eyes, my throat goes dry. Then I forget what I wanted to say. That day too, the same thing happened.
Don’t govern me with your eyes like that! If you can, look me in the eye and say it… that you’ve missed me terribly these past few days!
Thought: Nine Hundred
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One. Listen and remember this: twenty years from now, if suddenly you wonder whether I still love you, then know this—I want to keep loving you until the day before I die.
If suddenly our conversations stop, or if you say something to me that I cannot bear and I withdraw myself from everything of yours, even then if you want to know whether I love you, I will still say—true, we don’t communicate much these days, but I love you still.
If you leave this city, even then if you want to know whether I love you, my answer will be—my love did not begin based on whether you stay or go. I love you terribly, even today.
If distance ever comes between us, know this even then—I love you terribly.
If someone else ever enters your life… then you’ll know that I had to make such a decision only for family, but when I speak of love, I mean only you.
The word with which you are so inextricably entwined—that word… love… is meaningless without you…!
I have lost myself terribly within you; whenever I try to find myself, I must return to you…
Two. We could never become friends. In any relationship, friendship comes first of all. To tell the truth, we couldn’t become much of anything. Yet I have deposited everything I have with you. I know you have no need for these things.
What can be done! Loving too much is the cause of everything. Tomorrow, I think, is Friendship Day. I know I am no one to you, but you were once everything to me. Advance greetings for Friendship Day.
I trust someone who doesn’t trust me even by mistake. I loved someone who can’t stand the sight of me.
I loved you well,
And you, you said
my heart itself was dark!
When will you believe
that the love I had for you
was truly selfless!
You know,
the sky is like a bed,
and the clouds like cotton from pillows!
Just so, even bearing the blows you gave,
my heart remains just as soft toward you!
I accept that in your life
you don’t need me, not even by mistake!
Did I ever say…
that in my life I want only you!
You are not some infatuation
clinging to my eyes,
you are what remains
in the depths of my heart…
you are love.
Because I loved you, I will never return. I will never even want to know how you are. I have understood that without me, you will be wonderfully well. That’s why I no longer write you letters!
Three. We didn’t meet again. I no longer feel bad about this. Perhaps this is how it was meant to be.
No no, please don’t think even by mistake that I’m messaging to torment you. Nothing like “Here he goes starting up again!” I just said it, that’s all.
It doesn’t feel so terrible now; though sometimes it does, quite a lot—but I don’t say so! I too keep trying to change along with you. I can do it. But if I ever truly change, if you can’t recognize me, then please don’t be hurt; don’t ask, ‘Why did you change?’ You won’t ask, I know. Still, I thought I’d say it.
We are human, after all—feelings can’t always be hidden. From hiding my feelings and shouting, my voice has grown hoarse. Now I have neither the will nor the strength to do all this anymore. But I haven’t lost—I have won.
Nothing troubles me anymore. There isn’t much left personal between us either. If only I could return everything, I’d be free. I can no longer bear the weight of memory.
I say all this just because. I want nothing more. After the things you say, the arguments you make, I don’t even feel like responding anymore. I feel disgusted with myself for saying these things to you. I can’t even spit in contempt for myself—I just feel nauseous.
You never explain anything in life, you run everything your own way, you act selfishly. Even when something happens that should cause doubt, you don’t tell me the real reason. When there are misunderstandings, you don’t clear them up. Why? Perhaps it’s your ego, or perhaps you simply don’t like me. The calculation is simple!
It might be something like that, but that’s no problem. You never tell me the specific reason either. You don’t tell me to stay, you don’t tell me to leave.
You make all the rules according to your whim, and I’m the one who has to follow them all to the letter!
Four. After a certain point, life makes a person realize that every day they must return to the wrong home. Then, no matter how much they want to, they can no longer return to the right home.
Some people can, perhaps. They are either very brave or very selfish.
Five. When I pray, I pray.
When I don’t pray, I think about prayer.
My own prayer keeps me so constantly occupied that I don’t have time to judge others’ prayers. My prayer doesn’t let me stay idle. If it did, I too would have endless time to go to others and pester them by asking them to come to my path of prayer. The path to heaven is always solitary; it’s not a wedding procession that needs to be crossed with drums and fanfare. Before making others good, one must become good oneself. When you become good yourself, others will naturally follow you—there’s no need to bother anyone by forcing yourself on them.
My work is my prayer—nothing beyond that. Such is my life. If this life is wrong, I alone will pay the price for that error—you won’t have to. Stop being anxious about me and prove that you’re not idle. Different people, different kinds of prayer. A little common sense is enough to understand this. Intelligence is more necessary than religiosity.
Thought: Nine Hundred and One
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One. If you harm people, you might be punished.
If you help people, you will certainly be punished.
If you neither harm nor help people, you are quite safe.
Two. The god of music has departed. One of those at whose feet I always place this life has taken leave. The day after Saraswati Puja, this world’s most beloved Saraswati walked the path to heaven. The hero of my pre-childhood, childhood, adolescence, youth, and prime has crossed the boundaries of life and death to stand eternally for all of life.
It hurts so much!
May you rest in peace on the other shore, dear Lata Mangeshkar!
Three. It is far better to be a foolish and failed human being than to become inhuman.
Four. The most painful feeling in this world is to spend every moment seeking happiness by thinking of someone we will never have.
Five. Rather than accepting the bad sides of a good person on the excuse that “they are good,” it is wiser not to reject the good sides of a bad person on the excuse that “they are bad.” Yes, it takes a little time to accept this simple truth.
Six. Those who have never harmed anyone are hurt and humiliated by the very people who have benefited from them.
Seven. Don’t hastily assume someone is honest. First, look carefully to see if they have ever had any opportunity to be dishonest.
Eight. Doing good work is very difficult in this country. Because most people here believe that only someone they judge to be good has the right to do good work. Notice that such people have neither the desire nor the ability to do good work themselves, but their only job is to chase after those who do good work. We judge the person we don’t like; we judge the work of the person we do like.
Good work is good whether done by a bad person or a good person. You are a good person, you don’t do good work, but you make it your business to go around distributing certificates about whether those who do good work are themselves good or bad—this means you are a good but useless person.
There is no shortage of good people in this world; there is a great shortage of people who do good work. Rather than seeing whether a person is good or bad, it is more important to see whether their work is good or bad.
Nine. Come, let us plant…
trees.
Ten. In one lifetime we live in many worlds. Each of these worlds is connected to the others. The world you are living in at this moment—before this, you were somewhere else. You have arrived here by following certain paths.
From simple to complex, from gross to subtle, from thought to action. Through such various arrangements, a person finally becomes human, arrangements about which they themselves have little understanding.
When difficult times force a person to walk alone down paths that are dark and uncertain, everyone who sees them thinks, “Their life seems to have been wasted!” Yet no one has the right to comment on how anyone else is living, because that person is not living dependent on any of their faces.
If you cannot pray for someone, or can but don’t, do you really have anything to say about them? Who has ever seen the light of day without first seeing the darkness of night? Into whose destiny has good fortune come without first falling victim to fate’s deceptions?
Someone who has not yet reached their destination is not a fool—they are merely a traveler! The one who brings light to this world may not have a radiant face, their journey may not be particularly attractive. Pronouncing the end before seeing the end is not wisdom.
There is no need to disbelieve in anyone’s capabilities. Rather than forcing disbelief upon someone who doesn’t care about your belief, it is better to focus on your own work.
Eleven. Meet only with those after whose company good things happen to you, whose presence leaves your mind at peace. Where the opposite occurs, never—absolutely never—meet that person a second time. If you find yourself utterly unable to avoid them, let nothing they say touch you. Both their praise and their criticism are harmful to you. People who spread good vibes, are priceless.
Twelve. Two simple paths to staying well and keeping others well:
Never deceive those who trust you.
Never trust those who deceive you.
Thoughts: Nine Hundred and Two
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One. When most of the people around you have an opinion about you, be it positive or negative, you’re in trouble. Safest is the person about whom most of the people around them have no opinion.
Two. Do you know where the fundamental difference between you and me lies?
You understand barely two percent of me yet express ninety-eight percent. While I understand ninety-eight percent of you yet express not even two percent.
You judge me so harshly precisely because you don’t love me, and I never judge you precisely because I do love you.
Three. You must pay the price for the happiness you want to get. That’s all.
Four. In this life, some come close to us through emotion. When the emotion fades, they simply leave. Sometimes they even cause us great harm.
Others come close through love. Whether we keep them by our side or not, they never leave—they remain for life.
Yet we shower the first kind with such care and attention, while the second kind receives not even a quarter of it. The injustice we do to the second kind, we receive our punishment for from the first kind. What a strange cycle!
Five. For most women, having their beloved by their side matters more than even staying alive. Let the beloved fall ill, let him die if necessary, but he must give her attention, give her time—this is what most women want. Time and attention—to women, these two things are the very definition of love; if someone gives these two things even without loving, they have no objection. Therefore, while women generally know how to love far more, they don’t know how to keep someone well. And those goddesses who do know how to keep someone well almost invariably encounter men who simply don’t know how to love!
Because of this strange trait in women, they love one person but spend their lives with another.
Six. No matter how painful it may be, if you do these two small things without a second thought, your mental anguish and pointless waste of time can be greatly reduced:
Delete entirely, right now, any chat history that causes you pain.
Block that ID from everywhere. (Never, ever unblock it again.)
Sorrow is beautiful, if it creates.
Seven. I am quite possibly alive to sing just once on a piano at some midnight, striking a tune.
Otherwise I live to watch a cricket fly away at dusk, or to drown melancholy in half a cup of color on the balcony and swallow death.
I perhaps live to hide sorrow in the gentle murmur of a hawk-cuckoo on some rain-soaked afternoon.
Most likely, I will sink before sunrise on some Thursday dawn, after offering a shower of tears on a sorrowful spring noon. That day will probably be either the 22nd of Shravan, or the 13th of Falgun.
Well, whether death comes at twenty-one or thirteen—what difference does it make to death itself? None at all!
And on that day, there will be no precise reason for my death. Absolutely none.
Eight. For you, it was merely momentary pleasure. For me, it was the desperate longing to receive someone’s affection, tenderness, and companionship. In times like these, even someone stroking your head becomes something immense! No one can survive in a state of complete emptiness.
I am someone who lives far from family and loved ones. Loneliness had swallowed me like a black hole. In these dying moments, those who remain—their few words, a little trust, a little reassurance, a little hope—are like a bucket of water on a raging fire. This is an extremely difficult time; you yourself have endured such times. Yet you’ve forgotten everything when it comes to me.
One mustn’t speak harshly to people in difficult circumstances; they become very fragile.
I didn’t come to you merely for that brief moment of happiness. In this world, you were the only person from whom I received affection. Just knowing you were there would send loneliness running away.
But gradually, so much has changed.
I annoy you; you get irritated, I understand.
Perhaps time will change things.
Touching you a little, resting my head on your chest for a moment, wagging like a dog to receive a bit of your affection…these are luxuries from your perspective. Do you know why I do such things? I do them and tell my heart: Listen, you are not alone, you are not companionless.
Just this much…is even this small desire a luxury then?
Melancholy, tears—these things have merged with my blood. I could never escape them, nor will I ever be able to.
What seems like luxury to you is not luxury to me—it’s necessity.
Time will indeed pass. Living will be painful, but I won’t die! And even if I do die, I won’t come begging at your door—rest assured of that.
Feeling very tired. Take care of yourself. No need to reply.
Nine. What someone voluntarily discarded long ago, trampled underfoot—many fail to understand that you can’t tempt that very person again with the same thing…
Picking up a rosogolla that someone willingly threw away and crushed underfoot, and then—of all things—trying to tempt them with it again, calling “kabadi kabadi”!
Ten. One who makes no effort whatsoever to meet me,
let my thirst to love them grow no more!
You’re in such terrible hurry! Why? To escape from me?
But I never held you back! Then why?
You were in terrible haste,
while my heart was filled with you alone!
You were full of excuses,
my tears like camphor in my eyes!
Beloved, I truly don’t know whether I’m emotional or not. And even if I am, you shouldn’t say so. Let others say what they please. At least you don’t say it.
Don’t add your name to the ledger of the rest.
I know that I love. Don’t diminish my love by comparing it to mere emotion. You don’t have to love back, but don’t belittle my love by calling it emotion.
When a thirty-one-year-old person says “I love you,” it means they truly love you.
Do you understand what I’m saying?
Thought: Nine hundred and three
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One. So, will you just keep silent? Rather than prolonging the punishment with silence, punish me with scolding or curses—I’ll accept that with bowed head too.
On Valentine’s Day, when you didn’t give me time—did I punish you for that? I didn’t!
Another thing. Why do you ask me to come and then stop? One doesn’t need to stop when coming to you — one need only keep loving.
Have you put up barricades of silence? Alas, if only you knew — love never recognizes barricades!
I’m feeling terribly, terribly restless. How I’m feeling, I cannot explain to you. I have such a strong urge to tell you — won’t you come sit a little closer? You won’t have to say anything, just stay quiet if you must!
I know you’ve saved up all your ‘no’s just for me!
I don’t give time to anyone except you. Oh yes, there’s family! But of course, not everyone can be compared to family.
I like being with myself. I don’t care if someone likes me, and I don’t care if they dislike me either. I think this is my positive side.
Actually, you know what — why should I care about the words or comments of someone I don’t even love, or don’t even consider dear?! Yes, if you say something, it matters to me. But if the rest of the boys say anything, I think to myself… my foot!
Are all the men in the world my own? What do I care whether they speak or don’t!
This terrible sadness of mine — today I haven’t told this to anyone but you. Though of course, you have no time for me.
You know, I had time only for you, but you had no time only for me.
If my connection with you were to end forever!
If such a thing happens, know this — the fault would be yours alone.
I had asked for a little time,
Instead of giving it to me…
You gave away even my share to elsewhere!
I had asked for time, not your love!
You made me understand not to harbor any false hope!
Now then I come, beloved!
Our connection is just this much, know it well!
If you can manage not to meet me, our connection ends here, beloved! Letter, things you’ve used, time — I will never ask for anything again. Know this — if you don’t meet me, I too can manage without loving you.
(When I was writing this letter to you above, with what pain and tears in my eyes I was writing — if you had seen, perhaps you would have stopped treating me with such disdain for a while.
My love has made no demands of you, not even love in return! As a person, I have made some requests of you. Don’t confuse this with love, please?
I don’t know myself how helpless I must have felt that day to sit down and select such harsh words for you, or for so much accusation to pour out in my writing. Yes, you forced me to write!
If you extract such harsh words from within me through hurt and neglect, then know this too — to love you, I have never needed to receive your love. Even without receiving your love, I have been able to love so beautifully for all these years! Still, if you had understood even a little, so much would have been different! I am a wonder-box only when you can discover it!
If you had understood me even somewhat, I would have remained occupying much of you.
You might say that life doesn’t require so many people. Yes, it truly doesn’t. But at least some people who understand are definitely needed!
Whether I understand you or not—you won’t know that now. Let time pass, then you’ll understand. I’ll only say this much: no one stays by your side this long without understanding!
You’ve seen where I live, where I sit. You’ve understood, at least a little, how and in what manner I exist. If you truly grasp this, then one day my writings too will become comprehensible to you.
I had wanted you to understand me, but where did that lead! Between us now stands a massive wall of misunderstanding!
Who laid the foundation stone of this wall? You, or me? Or did this wall rise through both our reluctance? I leave this question with you.
I didn’t want to hold hands. I had wanted to touch your fingers and live out my life beautifully with the lingering sanctity of that touch. Yet you withdrew your hand!
My life will go on somehow, but the two of us together could have traveled far in our own way—you didn’t let even that happen!
To you my words seem like mere words, but to me they are the lived reality of my life. My life, my love, my you…I live entwined with it all.
You are far too harsh with me alone! It pains me greatly to say this and to accept it.
Two. Suddenly my sleep has broken! For single people like me, quarter past two at night is very late. The moment I woke, I remembered you. Are you well?
I cannot take care of anyone properly—not you, not even myself. What a disorganized person I am! But if you ever fall ill, I could nurse you back to health—I have experience doing this. But then again, you don’t need anyone’s care!
Tell me, what do you need? I’ll try my best within my means. For you, my capacity is never small.
This silence of yours, your saying nothing—it makes me feel guilty! I’ve even forgotten what we last quarreled about.
I find peace by lodging my complaints with you alone. To you I entrust everything fearlessly, confidently, faithfully. I know you’re the old familiar one. Who else do I have but you! Everything of mine accumulates with you.
I don’t even know what nonsense I’m speaking in the middle of the night. My sleep has broken; I wait for it to return. In all my waiting, you come.
Take care of yourself. If you need anything, consider me your own and speak freely, please. I’m not as bad as you think!
Three. Most of the time we love someone who perhaps has no need for our love at all. Again, we set aside time for someone who perhaps doesn’t want that time.
We make someone our whole world who perhaps doesn’t even think of us as a city. We want to see someone who perhaps doesn’t like our very presence. We keep someone in our heart who perhaps prefers to keep someone else there.
We tell our sorrows to someone whose heart wouldn’t be touched in the slightest even if we died. Yes, we emotional people make too many mistakes in understanding others.
Four. If you don’t meet me,
I too will forget to love
and remain alone!
Neglect, waiting, patience, sometimes peace and unrest—all these things remain entwined with the matter of love, I know.
Yet do not leave me so neglected that I must flee from love itself! I know how to wait. I have waited, too—you know this.
I know that love cannot be entirely peaceful; there must be some restlessness in love. Why do you show the path to one who walks the road of love accepting everything, adjusting to everything?
Why do you teach the meaning of “suffering” to one who learns to walk beside you, taking the wounds of thorns from you even without receiving flowers?
Waiting becomes beautiful when I wait for you. Love becomes truth when you dwell within that love.
And neglect… that is your precious gift to me!
There is a relationship between you and me—do you know that? Do you know the name of this relationship? The age of this relationship?
The relationship we share is one of selfless love. Yes, I am the one who loves you selflessly. But perhaps because I have not yet learned to love so selflessly, I find myself saying… meet me! Meet me!
I will keep saying this. If you don’t come to see me after this, I will truly forget you. I really will! You don’t even know—I am terribly stubborn!
Sometimes I place stubbornness before love. That’s just who I am. A bad person. You have surely met many good people in life; your acquaintance with a bad person like me will surely stay in your memory for a long time.
I don’t know why I become restless about certain things. Or perhaps being restless is right; at least one can be this way before the person one loves!
When I see that you give time to everyone except me, I fall silent. When I see that even on special days you have not a moment to spare for me—not even five minutes—all my love tells me again and again: enough is enough, now stop!
If I truly do stop, then know this: we women ask only for time from the person we love, nothing else.
When will I be able to forget you completely?
In false love there are no complaints, only strategies for saving face!
In true love there are no excuses for leaving—
only the patience to stay and endure both waiting and neglect.