Thought: Two hundred and four.
……………………………………..
To fall in love, women prefer men with a bit of fire in them. Once love takes hold, women want that anger to transform into care. Nothing grand—just see what magic awaits you when you lovingly gift a cheap bundle of glass bangles or a simple garland of jasmine flowers!
The capacity to love intensely or hate fiercely seems to diminish as age advances. Still, I find women appealing. Beautiful ones even more so. Everything about them captivates me—whether it’s their stern, flashing eyes or their sweet smiles. Everything…
How carelessly men seem to have been crafted! They exist merely to watch women’s charm and exclaim, “Wow! How smart!” I say it too. I deeply want to say it face to face. The urge grows even stronger when flipping through the ‘Naksha’ page of Tuesday’s ‘Prothom Alo.’ I’ve been searching for ages to find where my sense of shame has gone. Once I find it, I’ll truly grab it and devour it whole. Ah… all women are beautiful. And all the men are either good, bad, or ugly.
You’re reading this and wondering what sort of nonsense I’ve started spouting!
Isn’t that right? Listen, sir,
my Facebook wall is like my poetry notebook where I write whatever I please. I don’t come to Facebook to preach professionalism. I come to maintain professionalism. You can’t work with just your head—you need your heart too. I come here to repair my heart. It gets broken and battered from all that working. I still haven’t mastered the art of speaking grandly while pettily obsessing over trivial things. Sandeepan used to say,
“I am like my writing.”
But I lack that degree of honesty. So I’m not entirely like my writing. You could know me by reading my work—I’m neither as simple nor as complex as that would suggest. Most of the time I’m cheaper than my writing,
though occasionally I’m more valuable too. This me—I’ve spent thirty-three years with myself quite contentedly. Despite this long cohabitation with myself, both peaceful and turbulent, I remain a stranger to myself to this day. I’m moving toward an easy death to fulfill the difficult obligation of birth. This journey is surely not easy. On this path you need knowledge, and if you lack knowledge, you need wisdom. Those without knowledge in their bellies move by the force of wisdom. Those without wisdom in their heads move by the force of knowledge. Some have knowledge,
some have wisdom, and a few blessed souls have both. Alas,
I have neither! Yet somehow I keep moving! This me becomes a different me from moment to moment. I’m more scattered than my thoughts, or perhaps more organized. To understand my thoughts and me, you need sense, common sense, and a sense of humor—all three. Otherwise, maintain a safe distance from me. Unfriend or block me if necessary. Live and let live. I can coexist with those who don’t understand me. But I have neither the tolerance nor the time to stay with those who misunderstand me. Even if I had them, I wouldn’t give them. There are much better things to spend time on. “No time” might not actually mean no time.
It might mean I won’t give you time and I don’t want you to give me time. Before asking anyone for their time, it’s better to decide
why they should give me their time. Then there’s no disappointment. People can’t grasp this simple matter. So they comfortably misunderstand others. It’s better not to understand someone than to misunderstand them. Whether happiness remains or not,
let there at least be peace. This is my humble submission.
Thought: Two hundred and five.
……………………………………..
My family dreams so much about me that I’ve grown disgusted with dreams themselves. I came into this world bearing the burden of fulfilling everyone’s dreams! I understand—
I am a woman. If wandering the streets is my dream,
then is that something worthless? What am I to do?
Did I choose to be born a woman?
I have no dreams. Why must everyone have dreams? I don’t want to become anything. I love drawing pictures. I especially love drawing portraits. How strange, look! Everyone has a nose, ears, mouth,
yet everyone has a different face. When drawing, you must cleverly capture the person’s mind too in your brush. Is
this easy work? My dream is to die one day while drawing. What?
Can’t I,
without living for any other dream, spend my entire life just drawing?
Tell me, have you
seen the movie
‘Upside Down’?
I know you won’t reply to me. Still, I write knowing this. Your time is so valuable, isn’t it? Compare and see—
how difficult your life is!
Once you had nothing, but endless time. Today you have everything, but that most precious thing,
I mean time, that you don’t have. You have no time to give anyone—not even
yourself!
What good came from becoming so important? Are you angry? You could borrow countless hours from me if you wanted. I run three identities simultaneously. In this one life, I live the lives of three people. I think three kinds of thoughts at once. And you? Alas,
you can’t even live properly in this one inherited life!
From your moral standpoint, will you answer a question?
If I draw a portrait of my own face,
how many lifetimes could you stare at that picture with honest courage?
Listen to this! The sullen border of the face,
as if blooming in flower-fire,
love and spring never came, stone yet somehow living,
burning with passionate feeling,
lost afterward in solitude!
What did you think,
this border?
Look at this—Eid comes, Eid goes, and I feel so strange. Tell me, does father also come with Eid?
Can Eid be seen?
Touched?
I see, I touch. Am I wrong to think such things?
Is father now like Eid too? Impossible to grasp,
impossible to touch, but the feeling can still be felt—like that? Why do such strange thoughts about father come to mind?
When father was alive,
did I think like this then? I can’t remember!
I love you….!!!
I don’t know who loves you how or how much, but has anyone ever loved you as intimately, as deeply as I do? Put your hand on your heart and tell me!
I’m ashamed to say this, but these un-sorrows—are they the kind of thing one can share with someone,
tell me? Who knows when or why someone’s heart burns,
and how many understand?
I have some observations about you. Shall I tell you?
~ You never make a mountain out of a molehill. Simple things remain simple to you,
difficult things remain difficult.
~ What isn’t yours,
you never make futile attempts to snatch away.
~ Even over the smallest things, you can effortlessly offer praise to people.
~ You never speak words that wound anyone,
nor do you wish to; yet we do the opposite, even I myself.
~ You possess the infinite gift of swallowing your sorrows and speaking with a smiling face. The more pain and pressure a person can bear,
the more mature that person becomes.
~ You neither understand the spirals of duplicity,
nor do you see such spirals in anything.
~ You can mix easily with anyone,
no matter what they’re like, you can find their good qualities.
~ Time passes,
every moment of every person’s life slips away—lying down, sitting, idly,
working hard,
playing, chatting—however it may be, it passes. You spend each of your moments in your own way. You can master time.
~ Whatever you
do, you do it with your utmost.
~ You are a cheerful, vibrant person. In this brief acquaintance of ours, anger, irritation,
monotony—these things have never once entered, only because of you. As you belong to everyone,
so you belong to me. If I could have you for a lifetime, perhaps I would have nothing left to desire, I would have gained a priceless gem. Still, the way I have found you,
I have indeed found a priceless gem,
I have received your love and affection. If someday I disappear,
and suddenly return after a thousand years, touch my cheek with your hand.
~ Your needs are very modest, you become overjoyed with very little.
Always stay well. I am well. You are such a person
that thinking of you brings peace to the mind, just as it does after prayer; this
peace cannot be attained even through hours of yoga.
I imagined you with so much love, drew you close as I wished!
Where are you?
What are you doing?
Before spending a special time (be it night or day) with someone desired,
or someone beloved,
in the restlessness of joy,
or after that special time ends,
when completely intoxicated, overwhelmed in joyful tranquility—
precisely then—when a pointless, unsolicited, love-filled message from some annoying person far away
comes knocking at the phone screen like a rude, unruly soldier at an inopportune moment—
surely the whole thing becomes terribly irritating and ridiculous.
Sometimes, so be it, let me be the cause of this ridiculous moment!
Reflection: Two hundred and six.
……………………………………..
With fresh sleep still in my eyes and my weary body somehow dragged and hauled out of bed toward my destination—drowsing steadily to the rhythm of the bus’s jolting, through half-closed eyes I see from the bus window: in that green field nearby, men past sixty are chasing after a football with tremendous vigor and full vitality!
Then I think, life is beautiful, I’m just a complete rotten old woman who still hasn’t learned to know life! I remind myself again………..don’t give a counter-argument to everything,
don’t argue. Even the world’s finest person makes mistakes sometimes. Don’t think only of your own side, others too might have something to say. How much longer will you live harboring hatred,
distrust and contempt for a person,
tell me? When you make a mistake, learn to accept it and stay quiet,
practice staying quiet. I’m full of mistakes, I admit it. That doesn’t mean you’re always faultless.
Some self-imagined entity comes and stands before me,
just as the teacher used to come and stand before us in childhood to test our lessons. And I immediately fall silent like an obedient student.
Those who don’t read books,
don’t love poetry, don’t want to feel the emotions that dwell within people
(some emotions are expressed, others remain unexpressed)……….I feel great pity for them. A complete space of fulfillment in life—their lives remain forever filled with incompleteness. In one way it’s actually good, because behind much fulfillment lies a hidden suffering, and they don’t have to endure that suffering. Of course, what brings fulfillment to whom is also something worth pondering!
For many strange reasons, I too don’t read books. Nothing has been read,
nothing,
absolutely nothing. Maybe 3 or 4 books a year…..that’s all I have for sustenance!
While reading books, many questions arise in my mind,
I don’t get answers. I wish I could sit the author beside me while reading the book and ask those questions. If I understand it in my own way,
still I wonder, what I’ve understood,
is that what
the author wanted to convey?
If they didn’t want to convey that,
then I was wrong, so what was the point of reading the book?
Blah blah blah…………what the author writes,
by the time it reaches the reader, the writing is no longer the same,
divided among a thousand minds into a thousand thoughts, it takes on a thousand colors. Though this is troubling in one way, in another way,
it’s quite fascinating!
Often I feel like
leaving everything behind and setting out to find that one
‘damn’ Rabindranath! That crazy old fellow troubles me so! He left long ago!…………As if just saying it would do? In pure love, if you search from the heart, he appears just fine. Writers don’t know how to die. I talk with Humayun Ahmed quite often,
if I pay attention, I realize that during those moments of enjoying the soothing jhuum rain, he too silently comes and stands beside me………in a yellow panjabi, trying to hide both hands behind his back.
Those who write,
and are living,
in this question-torment, sometimes in anger,
in bad mood I don’t read their writings for a day or two. Those who are gone, I cannot question them. Those who are here
are also beyond the boundary of questioning. Then what good does their being alive do? Oh dear,
if only there were at least one person in life who would give permission and answer all the questions that arise in my mind after reading their writing!
Merit cancels out sin. Otherwise the whole world would crawl with the venomous footsteps of sinners. But tell me, does sin never cancel out merit at all? How many virtuous souls I see suddenly becoming sinful, wandering about making a mess of everything!
I think a person is fundamentally three kinds of beings—one: as the people around them think they are. Two: as they are to themselves. And three: as they truly are.
For instance, many people around me in life think I am tremendously brave. The real me is perhaps neither cowardly nor brave, something in between, yet to myself I am an utterly timid person. That’s why I’m always afraid to show courage. I’ve kept myself timid in my own eyes! That circle is a hard circle indeed! How do I break out of it? The cage that’s outside can be broken; but the cage that’s within the mind itself—how shall I break that? Then again, thinking differently, a person becomes as many different selves as the number of people they know. Truly, if a person meets a thousand people in their life, even with some unchanging essential traits, they become exactly a thousand different versions in the company of those thousand people.
And the world? This world is as many different worlds as there are people in it. This world is as many different worlds as there are lives in it.
Reflection: Two hundred seven.
……………………………………..
Earlier, if you took someone’s picture without their knowledge, it would be candid, and now people can consciously take ‘candid’ pictures! Everyone’s progressing so much! What smart public we’ve become!
I never bind anyone to me, both my hands and heart are open. I feel that what’s meant to stay will stay naturally, and what’s meant to go—no matter how tightly you cling to it, no matter how firmly you clench your fist around it—will leave anyway, won’t remain. Why should one run around with ropes and cords after anyone, tell me? The more you bind, the more you lose—I believe this. Whatever I do, I do with my whole being, I don’t want to hide behind masks and live too calculatingly. Why do you often ask me what I want? What I want, I’ve said directly. If you don’t want it, you can say ‘no’ directly. I’ve grown up now, so I can say ‘no’ and hear it too. If someday I truly get such an opportunity, I mean if I want to nurture your part within me, want to grow it in my identity, will you give that to me?
I remember,
in 2015 I spoke to you about something. You were perhaps hurt by my words,
so you remained silent, said nothing to me. Your silence was eating me away from within, bit by bit. One thought kept circling in my mind—I could hurt this person with my words! Why did I write and send all that? Can one just write whatever comes to mind, or should one think before writing?
The truth is, I used to think of you beyond the boundaries of right and wrong. Later I understood
that thinking in such a way was my mistake. Then with the very hand that had sent you that message,
I cut a good portion of my fingers with a knife. Don’t be afraid! Believe me, it didn’t hurt at all. Because the pain of hurting you with words was far greater agony for me than the pain of cutting my fingers. Self-reproach causes great suffering. The wound that comes from within the heart is very hard to bear. I bandaged my fingers, applied ointment, gradually they healed, but the wound in my mind never mended. Later, the day I went before you, I held my ears and begged forgiveness. Perhaps you don’t remember. Of course,
I don’t expect you to think about my feelings or behavior. Perhaps I will never hurt you again through my actions. If it does happen despite everything, then assume I have changed, and perhaps you have some role, however small, behind that change.
I love you very much. In return I never asked that you love me too, never asked that you inquire after me, never wanted to marry you either, never wanted you to call me someday. I want nothing from you at all. I only want
all your desires to be fulfilled. Your fulfillment is my fulfillment.
These 2 months and 5 days have been very difficult. Sooooo much. I felt like writing to you very much,
so I wrote. Don’t be angry, please.
Each time I venture into someone’s presence, I carry your image within my chest. Who else would dare enter that sacred space? No one can ever take your place. In my world, you remain unrivaled for all time. My world is very small. You exist there. I need no one else. You dwell in this heart with such overwhelming force that I am truly lost. I have no place near you, nor can I go to anyone else. Do you understand how merciless such an existence is?
God shows no favoritism to anyone. Whatever God has bestowed upon you, you have cherished and valued it carefully, thus making your fate gracious—which is why today you have become singular in everyone’s eyes. God has given me much as well, but I failed to appreciate His gifts, so my fate has not only remained ungracious, but now constantly reproaches me. Through my own failings, I could not become the object of everyone’s love as you have. God’s gifts must be received with humility, surrendering all one’s experience and pride. My greatest mistake is that whatever consumes me becomes the axis around which all my thoughts revolve. Jewels play within my reach, yet I mistake clods of earth for gems and kick the real jewels aside. The first step toward self-improvement is recognizing, at the right time, whether what I’m investing my time in is truly worthy of that investment.
Reflection: Two hundred and eight.
……………………………………..
What do you really want?
Before answering this, let me say: what you want, I do not want. This is the sole reason for the distance between us. As much as I consider you my own, I want to keep you just as close. I want to know everything—what you’re doing, how you are, where you are, how you’re living, and in what condition you exist. I want to continue accepting you as part of myself, as I have done, without adding any complications to your life. Do you remember the letter I wrote you on your wedding night? There were certain words there—you might call them imaginary, you might consider them unreal, but to me they were truth. It wasn’t merely a letter. It was my heartfelt prayer, offered to the Creator with my tears. I have honored that prayer to this day. Why don’t you give me the answers I seek? Why do you forbid me from messaging you like this? Don’t I feel pain? Don’t I feel hurt? Can’t I feel humiliated? Then tell me explicitly never to contact you on Facebook again. I won’t, ever. Yes, I can do that. You’ll see. Last night I only wanted to know where you are. Why do you avoid me?
Why do you ask me
how I am? That’s the one thing you always say, isn’t it? What should I tell you—
please don’t ask me that anymore. I’m afraid that if I say I’m fine even when I’m not, you might also say you’re fine even when you’re not,
and out of this fear, and to avoid lying—for these two reasons, I end up saying ‘I’m not well.’ And then, see,
you have to reluctantly,
or out of mere politeness, spend an extra second or two writing a couple more lines. What need is there for such pointless courtesy?
Please don’t ask me anymore
how I am,
I beg you.
Well then, for your sake I’ll learn
a little lie…
I am wonderfully well!
How are things with you?
After the rain
lifting its veil
see how the sun has risen—
blessed afternoon……….
Nothing feels right. I’ll tie up both feet and give them the ‘stone treatment.’ You’re wondering, what’s that?
Actually, it’s my invention. Tie both feet tightly with cloth or rope and pound them with a stone.
Do you know what ‘pounding’ means?
It really does provide a lot of relief. If you don’t believe it, you can try it. No, actually you won’t be able to do this. Because
unless your feet have exactly the right type of sensation that makes this treatment work,
you’ll get pain instead of relief if you don’t have that condition.
When I go to the doctor’s chamber, I can’t figure out exactly what to tell the doctor,
how best to describe which discomfort.
You know, once when I went to a doctor, he asked,
what’s the problem?
I said, when I sit in a chair I don’t feel like I’m sitting, I get no comfort,
I feel as if I’m still standing.
The expression on the doctor’s face after hearing me—whenever I remember it, I still feel helpless for that doctor.
I laugh to myself ha ha
ha! No! I have no problems. All the problems are in the ‘mind.’ I could knock out all of the mind’s teeth with one slap! Actually, not even in the mind,
it seems
I myself am one whole problem!
Thinking this I laugh again ha
ha ha!
Sometimes my mind feels strange,
body, everything inside the body—even the blood,
they all come together to hold
a ‘festival of pain.’
The flow of blood inside the body becomes a flow of pain. They all gather for this festival, and at that festival they laugh so gleefully. And I turn blue with tremendous agony,
I become disgusted with my own existence. When their festival ends, everything becomes fine. Everything becomes fine eventually. No matter how much it seems
this suffering will never end, all suffering does end. Physical or mental—no matter how much pain makes a person think they might die, actually,
the truth is this: people can very well live day after day with pain many, many times greater than that,
even for a whole lifetime.
I’m talking nonsense in my intoxication of reaching you. Don’t mind it.
Thought: Two hundred and nine.
……………………………………..
You know, right now I’m longing to take you to ‘Krishnokoli.’ The quiet silence all around us, two coffee cups facing each other. Evening fading away with the steam. Come! Will you go? We’d sit side by side drinking coffee! We’d slurp our coffee loudly! Have you ever drunk coffee with sound? Just try it once! Truly, there’s such joy in it! Close your eyes, take a sip and let out a loud “ummmmmmmm” with a deep breath—I’m telling you the truth—waves of peace will flow through your entire body. Just try it once!!
But don’t drink like that in front of me again, making all that noise! If you drink coffee that way, I’ll fall in love with you all over again at exactly seventy-four thousand kilometers per hour. Then I’ll want to grab you in my arms! I’ll want to lick and devour those coffee-wet lips of yours! I’m warning you, I won’t just sit there being a well-behaved girl. I’ll become fierce. To calm me down, you’ll have to abandon your coffee and deal with me instead. I know you like the wildness of satisfying bodily desire, but still I’m saying—you’d better just enjoy your coffee. I’m leaving.
Hey! Tell me, will you go to ‘Krishnokoli’? What would happen if you went? You won’t go, will you? I knew it—you won’t!
Fine then, you don’t have to go. But go once. Alone. That day, slurp your coffee loudly while thinking of me. Even if someone’s with you—I mean, your wife or girlfriend—even if she gets furious, wants to set everything on fire, let her be a little angry! What harm does a little anger do, tell me?
Listen, isn’t ‘Krishnokoli’ such a beautiful name? Call me Krishnokoli. Even calling me that in your mind would do.
I’ve fallen in love with you again, darling! If I keep falling in love this many times, I’ll surely have to run to Pabna! Please, hide me in your chest!
Listen, won’t you broaden your chest a little? How long can I stay curled up in the folds of your chest hair? This time I want to stretch out and lie down comfortably.
Hey hey hey! Will you lend me a bit of your body’s fragrance right now? I mean, right this instant! Please, give it to me! I’m telling you the truth, next time we meet I’ll return it—I mean, when we meet, I’ll take less than whatever you give me today. We’ll settle the account. What? It won’t work? What’s wrong? Give it to me!
I’m being too much of a burden, aren’t I? The truth is, in certain moments I become deeply depressed, my mood turns strange somehow!
That’s probably why!
I’m hoping
that from the day after tomorrow I’ll return to normal again. Really sorry,
dear! I’m remorseful!
Some meaningless thoughts and reflections are circling in my head,
doing so rather excessively. Why this is happening so suddenly these days, I can’t say clearly. I keep feeling that my path has ended, that whatever I had to give, I’ve given it all. Everything I had is exhausted. Today I am empty. I have nothing left to give. Now it’s time for me to go. Tell me, could tomorrow,
the day after, or the day following that be my last day?
It certainly could!
But why not today then? Does my heart still want to see something more today? I mean,
something will happen that I might live to witness? But one needs to be prepared for that!
No, today I’m not quite ready enough.
I conducted an experiment today. I filled the large bucket in the bathroom with water and found I could submerge myself in it. Quite well, in fact. If I turn on the shower from above, it works beautifully. Water is indeed a wonderful refuge for departing,
isn’t it?
On earth, death makes people most selfish. At the moment of death, one thinks of no one else. And whoever does think of others never dies.
Perhaps these words aren’t quite right. Death is inevitable, after all. So before death comes death itself. One who becomes suicidal
is surely very selfish. Otherwise they couldn’t contemplate self-destruction. One who dies by their own hand
dies to escape from themselves. They die because they want to live by dying. Such a person may be many things,
but selfless they certainly are not.
Why am I saying all this?
Actually, at this moment no other thought can give me as much comfort as thoughts of death can. I want to move beyond the reach of every person on this earth,
and only this notion brings me peace. You can call all these words of mine delirium or soliloquy if you wish.
Wanting you like this was the greatest mistake of my life! What one shouldn’t desire becomes exactly what one longs for most. Why is life like this?
You were a good actor,
but I couldn’t be a good audience,
that was my failure, you bear no blame for it. One must watch the hero of the theater from a distance,
never approach him. Coming close brings danger!
Then one wants to take his hand. One wants to dance holding that hand—however he leads,
just like that. That dance is utterly destructive! Once accustomed to that dance, death becomes inevitable!
Of course, nothing happens to the hero in this. He
is merely Nataraja, not a lover!
A question arises in my mind:
who do I really have?
Is there someone whose hand I could hold without worry for the rest of my life?
In this world, one who has no one truly their own,
who has nothing to give to family or receive from family, their life too has no value. That life can give nothing to anyone in this world. However painful it may be to accept,
this is the truth!
Reflection: Two hundred and ten.
……………………………………..
Look at this screenshot carefully. Yesterday, when I went to deactivate my account, on Facebook’s list of ‘who will miss me’—the people to your left,
each one is a member of my family. Even if I mistakenly end up in hell as punishment for some sin, they would neither hesitate to scold me severely, nor would they tire of pulling me back from there!
I know this. They are my dearest ones on earth. That’s not the point. The point is, how did you slip into that line alongside them! Now understand,
where I place you!
Whatever you may say,
I understand this much: what you are in my eyes—
surely you know no less than I do!
Now death is even closer—
there are road accidents—how easily accidents happen! There’s a river nearby, one could dive in forever if one wished. Believe me,
yet now I truly no longer want to leave that way. I won’t get entangled with anyone else in this life either. You know,
this past year, on that terrible date at that auspicious moment, do you know what I said sitting on the prayer mat? In joy and sorrow, in happiness and pain, from today I belong only to you. To no one else. I will remain merged among you in every touch of every day!
No one will know! What else can I do,
tell me! There was no other way! So today whatever I wish, whatever comes to mind,
I’m expressing it all to you, knowing it’s nothing compared to all my feelings, utterly trivial. This is how I’ve found you,
in my own perception all this time. How can I move away from there,
tell me? But I didn’t realize this finding would burn so much. Sometimes I truly want to touch you. Completely real, in my own way. All those kisses and all that affection, holding you by the neck, curled up small on your chest, I took a little nap in my mind. Is that alright?
You won’t push me away, will you?
Even if you do, I won’t go!
Night is advancing…
Night’s almost noon is approaching…
Night has put cooking on the stove…
Small fish will be fried…
Dried fish mash will be made with jackfruit seeds…
I want to smell the burnt aroma of jackfruit seeds…
But I’m feeling so sleepy…
If you ever fall into water, when someone tries to save you,
remember one thing very carefully—never put your full weight on that person. Holding that person’s hand,
just float with your arms and legs spread, meaning give that person the chance to save you. Most of the time it happens that the non-swimmer leans so heavily on the swimmer trying to survive that the person can’t save anyone else—they get exhausted struggling with their own life! I’m giving you this advice because
you don’t know how to swim. Why did I give it?
You are the only sun in my world! When you stop giving light, everything is covered in darkness.
Listen, when you know everything,
what’s the point of turning me away again and again,
tell me? My world grows weary of adorning itself with the light of candles, oil lamps, and gas lanterns! UPS and generators may banish darkness,
but is there really any life in that,
tell me? How much better is the light of the sky! I need light,
light! But that light comes only from you,
which is what keeps me alive.
I don’t seek happiness in artificial fountains. Rivers that cut through mountains and flow onward draw me more. I don’t listen to music—
the twittering of birds wakes me up, and I’m content with that. If I ever see all of this end—these fountains, rivers,
birds, and my sky—that day there will be no meaning left in staying alive!
I lose myself in conversations with the sky—
that’s what I do best. But what if suddenly the sky decides it won’t answer me anymore? What will I live for then?
I know
the way I’m living isn’t really life. Half of this existence is built on imagination, the other half on reality. From a distance, such a life might not seem so bad, perhaps I’m not really that wretched either, yet even such a life seeks a hand to hold it. In imagination I always live holding onto you, yet sometimes imagination forcibly wants to grasp real form,
the colors want to become even more vibrant. I dream,
and in that very dream I move forward, laughing a little, living just enough.
If you won’t give me an answer, then don’t call me anymore!
I’ll disappear,
and that would be better. Avoid me. Don’t even think once about how I’m getting by. I don’t even want anyone else to see me, yet the one I want keeps carefully avoiding me! Why won’t you talk to me?
I call out all day long,
and you just sit there in silence. Like WhatsApp, Imo, Viber, you’ve now cut off contact with me on Messenger too. Tell me,
if I stopped coming here,
it still wouldn’t matter to you at all,
would it?
Doesn’t anything happen in your entire day
that you feel like sharing with me? Why don’t you start conversations on your own? Ever since I got home yesterday, my head has been throbbing. And you’re making it even worse!
Why are you like this? I know I’m not alone,
you’re there with me everywhere. I’m hungry, I’ll eat. You must have eaten already, right?
Even though it’s cold, I’ve decided to take a midnight bath today. I have to rush to college again tomorrow morning. Are you still angry?
From now on I won’t talk to any strangers at all. Alright?
Now say something!
I made a mistake. I won’t see everything with innocent eyes anymore. I won’t sleep in the car either. Okay? Say something!
Last semester was my little sister’s wedding. I used to finish 3-hour exams in 1.5 hours and walk out. This semester I had fever during midterms too. Today I have a cold and fever again. Sneezing constantly, I somehow managed to get through two hours and came out. Still, I couldn’t figure out the Hunter Commission report or Wood’s Despatch. But in these two semesters, I’m the first person to leave the hall before everyone else! And listen, my photo-face isn’t good, you know that. Even with fever and my head full of oil, I wasn’t looking too bad—much better in person than how awful I look in those pictures you’re seeing. Besides,
those pictures I sent you, I clicked them almost without looking, just guessing. Do you understand?
I’m asking some questions. Answer them.
Question one. Don’t you understand that I say all this hoping to hear something from you too?
Why don’t you share anything?
Question two. You’re such a good boy! And I’m just a rotten girl,
so you don’t feel like telling me anything, is that it?
Question three. Should I tell you something?
Your writing has become an addiction. I’ve checked your wall so many times since morning, I was too scared to even say anything on the phone. When I don’t find your writing, emptiness engulfs me! How much more intoxication will you spread within me?
Final question. Just one thing—your first priority should be writing,
then everything else,
understand, you fool?
There’s nothing to fear about me, I won’t get angry, complain,
or sulk!
And there’s one more last thing.
‘I’ll call after finishing this work’—never say this again,
please. You never actually remember to call anyway, darling. Meaningless waiting is so annoying!