Still, Though Sleepless

1. This sleepless night, this ache in my head…the price of your beloved's displeasure!

2. My face bears all these spring-marks—witness to how many springs I have lived through without a single brushstroke of color!

3. Close your eyes and feel me, yet when I stand before you, you cannot hold my gaze even once!

4. I have left all the memories of this city scattered across diary pages, tangled in crooked verse. In your leisure, could you set the rhythm right?

5. When I am no longer here, tend to yourself with care. No one belongs to anyone forever, do you understand?

6. You are so wrapped in mystery, the you within you,
like another burning desert planted in the heart of a desert!

7. If love comes again and again, where lies the harm, if each time it helps someone become human?

8. The ankle-bell I fastened to the sweet wind—to hear its chiming, you must become restless on the outside like you are, yet still within, as unchanging as I.

9. I do not know why you call love by the name of torment! For me, love has only one meaning: death.

10. By staying so far from your body, I have drifted so close to your soul that now I cannot even tell which way leads back to distance!