# The Deer's Slippery Hide / Beginning Moonlight slips across the deer's back— how the luminescence finds its way through each trembling hair, a caress that asks nothing, demands nothing, only descends like mercy on what lives in the margins of our seeing. I think of beginnings this way: not the trumpet-call or the great pronouncement, but this—a hesitant touching, a soft arrival that the flesh barely registers until much later, when the whole shape of the night has shifted without our knowledge. The deer does not know it is beautiful. It does not know the moonlight is there at all, only feels, perhaps, a coolness, a lessening of shadow, and moves on into the deeper dark, unaware that it carried light in its going. This is how all things commence, I think: not with fanfare, but with the imperceptible weight of luminescence on the shoulder, the body's quiet recognition that something has changed, though it cannot say what, and the world continues in this ambiguous dawning, neither begun nor ended, only touched, only altered, only moving forward into a future it does not yet recognize as future.

 
You are vaguely sweeping
out of the memory of the
sea, like a wanderer sleeping
in an abyssal forest---
I followed after you,
and I was shuddering
in the misty evening of
two black feathers.


After the last meeting
to meet oblivion,
I rose, I fell
and I suffered in the face.
That night made me love, 
the days go by,
our joy doubles
our cheerful greetings.


There are times when I'm so furious with you that I want to go and dump a bucket of water over your head. I wish I could grab your hair by the fistful and pull it out strand by strand! Then you'd understand how much it hurts. Or I wish I could sink my teeth into your hand with all my strength. Or else I wish I could keep punching you with both fists until I collapse from exhaustion. And yet, look at me—I can't even show you a fraction of that anger. Then I feel like I should just punch myself in the head and crack my own skull open! Perhaps this is what love is called. I'm telling you in reply to some of your texts: no sir, I am not a careerist. I never was. Perhaps you think I spend all day thinking about nothing but my career, that I can't think of anything else. But there's nothing like that really. When I'm hungry, I eat a guava, I eat a carrot—career-thinking simply isn't part of my diet! I never had the desire to hold a job. It never even crossed my mind that I would work for someone. I've always wanted a very simple life, from childhood itself. All that luxury, all that ostentation—my heart was never in any of it. Perhaps if I do get a job, I'll live even more simply. I want to give my surplus money to charity, for the welfare of people—that's my wish. Now I want to work, and perhaps there are reasons behind it. I don't want to tell you or anyone else what those reasons are. Many things have come up in conversation over time, and I've spoken about them because they had to be said, but I have no desire to keep resurrecting memories that have gathered dust, to drag them out again and again and wound myself afresh. Just know this: I am naive, perhaps, but I am bound—not for anyone else's sake, but for my own, I am terribly, desperately bound.


You often say I'm an incredibly resentful creature. Would you be better off if I didn't feel wounded pride? Really? Then why don't you take my resentment seriously? You're not obligated to pay attention to my grievances. If my pride, my complaints bother you too much, if they wound you, then pay them no mind—slowly you'll see that I won't harbor resentment anymore, won't voice any complaint. I've felt that love has a certain right to it, and from that right, I can certainly nurse a little wounded pride, a little complaint. But if those things go against your peace, I won't do them anymore. Yet this could change so much else, and then please don't come later saying I've changed. You've grown used to my resentment; if I stop feeling wounded pride, you yourself will feel terribly uncomfortable. Learn to live with it.


Let me tell you something that happened. When I got divorced, a few days after, when everyone in my circle of friends found out, they all slowly began to drift away.

So back then, there were a couple of friends like that—the kind who insisted they were always there for me, always saying such things. On those days when the walls of home would close in and I’d feel the breath catching in my throat, I’d ask them to step out with me for a while, you know—walk around the college campus, grab a bite at a restaurant, go shopping. They’d agree to go, but they wouldn’t actually come with me to college, or the restaurant, or the market. They were afraid that if someone saw them with me, they’d be thought of as ‘bad girls’ too, like me. Our hypocritical society still looks upon divorced women as ‘bad.’ They’d take me to places where no one knew us, and if we sat together in a rickshaw, they’d pull the hood up, or sometimes they’d say, “You go ahead to that spot, we’re coming.” I understood why they said it, but I never said anything. I’d watch all of this, and watching it, I was learning everything. Still learning, even now. I learned from watching the boys: that a divorced girl who walks alone—everyone wants her close, but no one wants to keep her.

Now, of course, my friends have changed a lot. They want to go everywhere with me, they beg me to come along, they want to spend time with me. But somehow I don’t feel good about them anymore. Going anywhere with them feels tedious. And when I remember those days, that treatment—when it comes back to me, I just can’t accept it anymore from the heart. Though I’m not even angry with them, let alone hurt. I’ve never really been hurt with anyone, actually. There’s nowhere I can lodge a complaint or make demands, wasn’t before either. The only reason I can feel hurt with you is because I want to. The day I understand I can’t feel hurt with you anymore, I won’t. Women’s hurt always comes mixed with infinite demands. How can I feel hurt toward someone who doesn’t know how to meet those demands? To feel hurt with someone who can’t meet the demands of my hurt—that’s just inviting suffering into my life.

You say women are just boxes of ego. Am I like that too? Partly, or completely? If I am, then tell me—when and about what do I act like that? I can’t see it in myself, so maybe if I knew, I’d try to correct it. You say I’m very sensitive, often. But is this sensitivity, or is it self-respect? Of course, I still hurt about many things; it feels very bad inside. It’ll be fine, I’ll fix it slowly. Women can do anything. I can too. I didn’t even know I was carrying around such strange, peculiar afflictions inside me! I’m learning so much about myself from you, and it feels good. But listen—I sent you so many messages all day today, and you didn’t reply even once. What did I do wrong?

Do you even remember me? These two days I’ve missed you terribly. I know you were busy, but couldn’t you have thought of me even once? And why am I like this these days? Nothing feels good without you. Hurt me as much as you want. I want even more hurt from you. Don’t love me at all. I want to live on your hurt. Why does it seem lately that you’re forcing yourself to smile when I see you? Why don’t I see that laugh of yours anymore—the one that used to come from deep inside?

Yes, I can see it all from your picture—truly, how well you’re doing! When my heart aches, when I suffer, you sense it at once, and it troubles you deeply; and in the same way, when you suffer, I cannot be at peace either, nothing brings me joy. The better you are, the happier you are, the more I feel that well-being and happiness of yours from this distance. I tell myself then that I am deeply happy. You have not granted me the fortune of seeing you happy up close, but does that mean you cannot let me have it from afar? When you are truly at peace, I find such quiet in my own heart; and even when you are in pain, I sense it all the same. Never once has envy stirred in me at seeing your happiness, no matter who you are with. You are the bird of my heart, and my heart’s bird must always be at peace, always in joy—this is all I ask! I cannot ask for anything more; at least grant me this solace. I will ask you for nothing else. Let me find comfort at least in this: that you are well, if only because you think of me. And if there is something I might do that would make you happy, tell me, and I will do it.

My life’s delight, you don’t understand at all how much I miss you. One day you too will do the same for me—I know it. Every time a message sound comes on my phone, I think, *This must be you!* and I check it at once. I never put my phone on silent, not even before sleep. I think to myself: what if one day you miss me terribly, want to talk, and when you call and don’t reach me, you’re hurt? What if I don’t hear your call? And yet you have never, not even by mistake, sent me an extra message or an unnecessary call—why have you never made even one extra call? It pains me terribly, do you know? I know it won’t always be like this. One day you too will grow desperate just to have me near, just to feel a little love. But no one does these things while there is still time. It pains me so much, you know? I want so badly just to talk with you, just to hold you close. Sometimes I think I must have been born precisely to feel pain slowly, drop by drop, having never been loved. People quarrel, they grow angry and don’t speak—that’s different. But with us there is no quarrel, no anger—there is simply nothing. And yet between us both there is this hollow trust that we are in a relationship! I have somehow forced all of this upon myself.

If I had not come to you that day, you would have forgotten me entirely, or you would have forgotten me soon enough. And if perhaps, someday long after, you had remembered me by chance, you would have called, we would have spoken, and then it would have been as before. Just as a dress lying in some corner of a drawer full of a thousand others goes unseen, yet when it catches your eye after a long time, something stirs in you, and you want to hold it close again—I am exactly that to you. I will not make myself smaller anymore. I will not debase myself.

# Love Without Surrender

I don’t believe that loving someone means you must demean yourself, declare your love regardless, bend to their whims, or remain by their side despite their neglect and disrespect. Love is not that. When you love someone, you can pray for their wellbeing from a distance, become the assured shelter above their head, love them silently all your life without asking for anything in return. But loving someone doesn’t mean you must always stay close, trouble them, show anger, sulk with a puffed-out face, and tolerate all their indifference and disrespect just to prove your love before them. That’s not it.

Don’t think I’ll sink into despair, that perhaps I’ll end, gradually fade away, become incapable of doing anything, of living, of standing up, of moving forward. I’m telling you the truth—everything will go on as before. All pain washes away, all wounds from every blow dry up and heal. Yes, I’m afraid, because I know love makes people weak, sometimes renders them useless. I don’t want to go too deep for this reason—because once it becomes a habit, you can’t stay distant anymore. What’s the point of going so deep when all I’ll find there is my own suffering? I don’t take anything seriously anymore. I care as much as I can, as much as I’m able. I stay distant, and whatever else may come, at least I can live. If I stayed close, if I saw all this from proximity, I couldn’t have lived at all. Did you ever hold me close? Did you ever truly make me yours? Ask yourself. Then why would I burn myself away, again and again? If you’re right here, why don’t I feel it? Why do I feel so terribly alone? My heart is really very small, my soul is small, so small. I’m a person with a very small mind. Did you ever, even once, try to understand how much I suffer, how much I writhe, how my heart shrinks smaller and smaller waiting for you? Did you ever try to understand such things? You never will, because you cause me pain while understanding full well. You want me to burn away like this, bit by bit. You simply never have time, truly, for me alone. That’s why I haven’t said this much before, haven’t let you understand, because I knew you wouldn’t comprehend, that nothing would matter to you anyway. I’ve found a way to console myself now—now I can tell myself: he’s where he’s content, he’s with those who keep him well, since he’s doing well, I don’t want anything more from him, at least one of us two is doing well!

I sat on the roof last night until eleven o’clock, in the moonlight. I love moonlit nights, and they feel even better when I’m alone. When someone sits beside you yet you don’t feel them there, their absence is actually preferable. When such a person sits uselessly beside you, it only makes you uncomfortable, and you can’t properly experience your own solitude. I asked myself so many questions, there was so much I wanted to know about myself. When I desired to know something, I found that answer. Pain will come, of course—I’m not some unfeeling person. So when pain arrives, I will feel it, I must feel it.

I cannot hold it back—I’ll likely evade it, and without knowing, I’ll find myself repeatedly proving to myself that I’m perfectly fine, that none of it matters to me, that there’s no pain or rage or hatred inside me, nothing of the sort at all. But am I truly that? What am I hiding from myself? Am I hiding myself from myself? Perhaps you can bury yourself beneath lies told to yourself, but can you remain buried there? Yes, I console myself, but the measure of my suffering is certainly far, far greater than whatever consolation I offer. A terrible rage builds up; I want to smash and destroy everything, and when I see someone else beside you, I cannot bear it at all—I’m consumed by jealousy. My whole being is filled with nothing but envy, envy and more envy.

Then, when my mind grows calm a little later, everything becomes clear to me: you are well there, living contentedly in your own way. So why can’t I accept it? Does that mean I don’t love you? From within, the answer comes: of course I love you. And because of this, I must accept everything; I must grow stronger still, I must endure, and I must let you live happily in your own life. Certainly, certainly, I am no one there. There is no place for me, not even my existence has a place there. I must forget all of myself; I must become consumed with work, I must step away. I must work—work so much, work endlessly. I must run faster and faster, so that even if death itself suddenly appears before me, I won’t have the presence of mind to understand anything or embrace it. To live is to long intensely to feel love.

Has this ever happened to you? Have you ever, after tasting a new dish or finishing reading something new, felt—what was that!—and then, all this while, that taste of the food, or a line from that book or article, still leaves its mark on your mind today? Does that old warmth remain? Or have you ever read a line and thought, let it be, I won’t read it again, for fear that rereading it might steal away the very pleasure of it? Have you ever felt such a thing? Sometimes it happens to me—though rarely—but I think: whatever I’ve read, whatever I’ve grasped, let that be enough. If I read it a second time and the meaning shifts, or the delight simply vanishes, I’ve been afraid to read again. Even now, the echo of those writings lies on my tongue like the lingering taste of a beloved meal.

Tell me, isn’t this absurd! I only feel that my love for you will last a lifetime, or that I’ll never care for anyone else the way I care for you. I feel I’ll love only you all my life, and that love will remain this deep, this immense. Tell me, is this belief of mine mistaken? And then when you say that people’s preferences change with time, I become so angry at you—it feels as though you’re already laying down a permanent arrangement to leave me, as if you’re preparing an excuse so you won’t have to explain too much when you go. Then I want to make you understand clearly that you’re wrong, that this will never happen, that I won’t allow it to happen! Tell me, what am I to do! These days I muddle everything; I understand nothing anymore.

What once seemed clear to me now appears incomprehensible, as though I have never truly understood anything at all. The entire world has become opaque; I feel more ignorant than a child, and I wonder—what have I learned in all these years? Have I simply wasted time, pointlessly, endlessly?

No one will extract anything from me by force. Yes, you may think it—this is my anger, my stubbornness. You can call me a willful girl, defiant through and through. You can believe me proud and headstrong, uncompromising and self-indulgent. But I am none of these things, truly. I am simple, ordinary. What you see in me—that is only my outer shell, because I cannot bare what lies beneath, nor do I wish to. If you could accept me as I am without judgment, if you could receive me whole, you might draw far more from me than you do now. Perhaps I might even become what you desire. But I do not wish to become anyone’s idea of anything, nor can I ever manage it. I can only ever be myself. And if you allow me that—to simply be—then you will be the victor. The more you demand that I reshape myself into your image, the more impenetrable I become, the more mysterious and tangled. My complexity will read to you as mere stubbornness, a flaw to overcome. You do not know how to receive. If you had the capacity, I would be forever ready to give. Know this: I have no interest in becoming a puppet dancing on your strings. The more you insist I conform, the further I will withdraw from you, because such demands exhaust me. I know precisely how much to offer and precisely how much to withhold. Whatever else I may be, I am not defenseless.

Will you understand the language of my heart only when my lips have ceased to speak? Will you then comprehend what I cannot now express, just as you do now? Even today, you perceive the words I leave unspoken—they betray themselves to your mind. Do you take such pleasure in catching me out, in pinning me down like an insect under glass? What more must I conceal? I have hidden my understanding. I have tightened the bonds around my emotions. And yet, despite all this, you dismantle me day after day, only to rebuild me in your own image. What satisfaction do you gain from breaking and remaking me?

Words that create no understanding are merely alphabet—they may carry meaning, but that meaning is lifeless, inert. Some words simply pass by the ear without touching anything. The understandings we weave into our own feeling bind themselves to one another. Love is the highest understanding the world knows. Love creates in us something unique and irreplaceable. When we begin to perceive love’s true nature, we recognize that it is entirely, utterly an inner thing. Love is born within us, transforms within us, surrenders and transcends itself, reveals to us our own face, corrects us, liberates us from self-centeredness, becomes universal, spreads itself wide—and then, necessarily, returns to us. Through ages, love has moved by laws we think we understand. Or so we have heard, so we have spoken, so we have defined it. But is it really any of these things at all?

Whenever the question of love arises, we haul out a heap of principles, pile upon pile of weighty, solemn, complicated maxims, as if love were truly some such thing. Love demands selflessness, demands honesty toward the beloved and toward love itself, demands good deeds, transparency at all times, the tending of love, the nurturing of it in the depths of the heart. Love requires that we grant freedom to the beloved, that we watch over the relationship to prevent any distance from forming between the lovers, that we never compel the beloved to do anything, never neglect them, never hurt them, that we continue earning their trust while holding unwavering faith in them, that we keep the beloved always unburdened and free from doubt, that we give throughout our lives expecting nothing in return, that love cannot be possessed, that we must keep them happy, that keeping the beloved happy means being happy ourselves, that the beloved always remains in our feeling and that feeling never fades…is this what love is? Is there anything beyond this? Do people not call these things love? Have they not made these into absolute law? As for when and where these concepts of love arose, or what need brought them into being, I have no knowledge of it, nor do I wish to have any.

I do not actually wish to bind love by any law. Love, to me, is a most natural thing. The way every limb of my body performs its functions unknowingly, ceaselessly, without pause—in just that way does love seem to me easy and fluent. I love to think of love sometimes as a part of myself, a limb of my being. It is important when needed, natural when not. Yes, to me love is a ‘need’ in times of need just as it is that same ‘need’ even in times of no need. Perhaps in that case the measure of that need is sometimes voluntary and sometimes essential, sometimes dependent or unwanted, sometimes present and sometimes stable in the demands of time. Why must these forms of love always remain fixed? Everything changes with time’s demand, with the current—then why do these things we hold in love’s name not change? Why must love always be selfless? What is wrong with love being selfish? Who says there can never be love within wrongdoing? Who says love must remain honest? If someone has spent their entire life remaining honest only toward the beloved or toward the object of love, but in a moment of crisis could not bring themselves to do wrong to save the beloved from danger, what does their honesty in love amount to? In times of necessity, love itself makes demands for a certain dishonesty, a certain wrongdoing.

My understanding of love is somewhat different. I do not grasp those conventions. To me, love is the finest invisible yet fully present reality in this world. It is something that contains within itself joy, sorrow, hurt—everything—and can even, when needed, completely erase all feeling, all perception. All the words we hold come from that deep understanding, that deep knowing. This self-awareness itself is the soul of love for me. Love is so complete in itself that there is nothing outside to complete it. For me, true love never comes through possession or acquisition. Love is such a total feeling that it keeps us always awake and afloat in subtle joy.

Love never weakens under the pressure of circumstance; it only grows fiercer. I have come to understand this: a fierce love has taken root within me—sometimes consciously tended, yet at other times arriving with no warning at all, from the dark reaches of my own mind. Sometimes these very realizations have shattered the discipline I had built for myself. I had convinced myself that whatever I love—the work I adore, the people I cherish, all that calls to me—must be expressed, declared, or else it will wither and die. Perhaps I was always seeking something in return.

But love cannot truly be grasped. It can only be wound around the heart in silence and shadow. Love is complete, whole, and alive in both its hidden and visible forms. Sometimes the fullness of love narrows it, makes it small. Yet it is always renewing itself. There is so much that transcends me, so much that teaches me to live a life of wholeness—much of it bearing no visible mark or recognition. A boundless and genuine love for certain people teaches me to bow before them in reverence and gratitude. I move silently among them with a tender heart, yet I say nothing, ever. Love itself is the greatest reward—it teaches the heart to rise above all logic, those reasonings that sometimes rob people of their finest qualities, that keep them starved and dispossessed. All logic, really, runs counter to love. Logic forbids love. Logic stirs an ego within us and, in its cultivation, strains love and its deepest stirrings from life itself. Logic denies us the freedom to fully know and express the truth of our own love. Do you know what happens to me? I long to sit holding your hand for hours. To tell you stories, speak endlessly with you. To rest my head on your chest. To hold you so tightly my arms ache. I want to cherish you beyond measure. I miss you so much. What I say is never enough. What I feel cannot be put into words at all.

What did you text me? Are you planning to kill yourself? Why are you drowning in such guilt? Why is your restlessness growing? Why does it seem I’m angry with you? Whatever you do, know this—you owe me nothing. No accountability, no apology, no binding chains. Do whatever your heart wants. Do whatever your brain asks for. Life is too short. It is better to die having tasted a few false joys than to live haunted by regret. Why do I want to love you even more? Don’t make this mistake—dive into me and you will only keep sinking, finding no bottom, descending deeper and deeper into an abyss. I am nothing but illusion, and the more you grasp at me, the more tightly I will wind around you, pulling you under.

And one more thing, please—do not trust me absolutely. To carry someone’s belief is a heavy burden, a weight. It imposes an unspoken duty to honor that trust, and I cannot bear such a duty. I cannot carry it. I am like a firefly burning in the evening—blazing so bright I sear your eyes, then snuffing myself out of my own volition. Love within me decays with time. I cannot hold the shape of the vessel I am poured into, so I cannot even trust myself. Take my hand only if you are willing to drown with me. Otherwise, not at all. Please, do not become mentally dependent on me. I am telling you truly—I change with time.

As long as you stand before me, I am ready to tear out my own heart for you. The moment you turn away, I surrender my soul to another’s hands. My insides are like a box of colored pencils—scattered, unpredictable. I am not trustworthy. I have never harbored long-term plans for anyone. To consume the present fully, to drain it of every drop—that is my nature. Tomorrow barely crosses my mind. How little you understand about me, about us! My brain was wired this way from the start. I am often melancholy, just as you are. You don’t let it show either; neither do I. Though there have been one or two moments when you saw through me. What is the point of all this arrangement, this architecture, for a life of merely two days? Life is just a stupid time-machine, nothing else.

Childhood slips away according to our makers’ wishes. Boyhood passes within walls of discipline and exploitation, schoolhouses that are nothing but prisons. And youth? Youth is spent chasing after the empty phantom called career. The life after that is squandered pulling the wheel of one’s own household, and the final stretch is worn away in the decay of the body. And yet—people are born to live freely, they say. From birth until the moment before death, when does a person ever taste freedom? There is only one truly free and happy person in this world: the madman. He knows no deprivation, no unease, no sorrow. I envy them. They alone are the ones who laugh, who can laugh with their whole being, anywhere, anytime, for any reason or none. Before I die, I want to go mad, even once. The hunger to taste happiness, even once, burns in me fiercely. To live well and to be good—one must be mad! Come, let us both go mad together. Never ask me whether I am angry with you. I am never angry with you. I never will be. Even if I am, it will pass. Against the weight of my love, such a thing is nothing.

You promised me you would give me time. But I wait, and wait to see when you will be free to speak with me, and you do not understand. It hurts. How I long to talk with you. I no longer want to talk with anyone else. I wait and wait, and still you do not ask after me. I cannot reach you. You tell me to talk with other boys, but if I have no wish to talk with them, what am I to do? If you would only give me a little time, would I make such complaints? I love you. So why should I not have your time? I ask for nothing else from you.