The Courage to Desire

Does loving you give me the right to know everything?
Must I hold you close to keep you well?
Does all your dwelling lie within this love and wellness?

If I suddenly appeared before you, would you turn me away?
Or would you hold me close in the crowd of sharp breaths within your chest?
How I long to know.

I'm thinking I'll just show up suddenly—let's see what happens!
What good has all this thinking ever done anyone?
Why did I want so desperately to keep account of our time...

In that first moment of touching you, I held your hand under the pretense of mistake.
Can that feeling of tenderness ever be brought back, tell me?
Even with a hundred attempts, that day will never return.

When you asked me to stay across the breadth of your ribs—
I couldn't.
How can I face you carrying all this failure?

But didn't you say you'd come?
Ha ha... In my imagination I go to you every day.
Perhaps I couldn't fulfill your beautiful wishes in reality, true,
but believe me—when I wake suddenly in deep night,
I feel you lying very close to me.
I stroke your hair for the remaining time.
Tell me, can't I come very close to you?

You are mine, after all.
I couldn't place myself throughout all of you, could I?
Why don't you want to cast me away?
Do you feel pity for me?

If I had the power—
I would love you with my everything.
Have you ever wondered why I had to stay so far away?
Do you know the answers to all questions?

If I could ever show you the inside of my chest,
would you love me too?
Could you love me enough to make your sufferings mine?
Would you let me remain in a corner of the expectations
buried deep in your heart?
Would you let the hands of time move once more in my waiting?

I couldn't keep any promise to you.
That very day I wanted to return—
why did you embrace me?
Could I ever come ignoring your embrace?
I don't think so.
You told me not to think so much about it all—
we're all living with pain anyway.

I no longer had the courage to want you desperately, you know?
I thought I'd leave all my failures and sufferings with you
and disappear far away.

Don't you want to understand me anymore?
How could I have been so wrong?

If all that I came to know of you
had been enough,
then you would be quite ordinary.
But no—
touching you, I realized you are far more extraordinary—
beyond my imagination.

You know, your inner self is impossibly beautiful.

Can you read what's inside?

Hmm, I can.
Placing my ear against your chest, I heard—
you too have many unspoken feelings, scattered stories.
You too have hidden pain,
though undisclosed to everyone,
even in silence I could sense it perfectly.

Why do you embrace me?
Don't you know, in the shelter of infinite sorrow within your chest...
I find myself!

Such peace in holding you close.
You are busy, eager
to touch and show the pain woven into my existence.

Your eyes hold traces of all the moments we found and lost in love.
How can I live without seeing you, tell me?

Why do you suddenly want to remind me of all the old words?

The time has come to gaze into your eyes.
Won't you step out of my imagination and stand before me for a while?

Why couldn't I?

Then come.
My familiar, therefore safe comfort lies in reminding you of old words.

Let our words remain this way in your mailbox—
utterly unnecessary.

Even if I never touch you again,
I won't regret not being able to speak the unspoken feelings.

That I am not in your eyes—
I don't like thinking this.
That you won't be in my helplessness—
this too feels suffocating these days.

May all that is good be yours.
Mine is all bad—
that's why I'm so afraid to come to you.