1. Whenever you want to pause, to catch your breath and rest a little, that's when you'll think of me. When your heart goes completely cold, stripped of all its fervor, you'll find me beside you then. See how the peace that comes from resting your head on my chest exists nowhere else in this world. It's been so long since we loved each other. Come, let's love again, let's fall in love all over again! You've turned me into someone new. I love you. It's hard not to love you. People talk about you a lot. I can see through them. Just the other day I was talking with someone… suddenly they brought you up and said you were raised on books and affection, spoiled rotten! Once you started doing things for people, this "you" of yours made it impossible for people to ignore you. Whoever they are, I'm sure that the first time someone hears about you or reads your words, they fall in love with you. They burn with an intense longing to be like you, consumed by a kind of fire. Then after a while they either think you're a god, or they criticize you. To avoid loving someone, you have to build a reason for it. When people say something negative about you, they find peace in their hearts. At least ten people have told me you speak badly about women. In reply, I've said, the girl herself gave you the courage to speak to her. Don't come commenting without checking the facts. And why should it even be wrong? Did someone force someone else to do something at gunpoint? My love for you has never diminished, only grown. Or it hasn't suddenly vanished and turned to hatred. Look how much I love you—it hasn't lessened! Even now when I think of you, it feels like you're sitting in front of me talking. The way you listened to every word I said then… I didn't understand it then, I understand now—what did you find in my eyes? I can still smell you. Really, I can. I don't know if it's a miracle. Take my love. This me of yours—all your peace—sometimes I wonder, how do you stay so far away from this place of tranquility! Then without meaning to, I think again: but I'm here… even if far away, I'm here, and isn't that peace itself? People can leave others so easily, you know? Why can't someone like me stay? You're so deep inside, no one will ever be able to pull you out from there! I don't know what lies ahead! Just stay. Stay so completely, that I never feel I'm alone. I too will stay with you forever, wherever I am, however I am. Even if you won the whole world and lost everyone, to win against yourself you first have to lose to yourself ruthlessly, then rise again. The latter isn't just hard—it's harder still. I don't know if we'll ever see each other again! I suppose I don't even know how to hold on. How did you leave me like that! Even great love can't hold anyone. You're incomparable. I'll never find anyone like you in this lifetime. You're leaving like this, and rain falls from my eyes. Loves are always love, forever. Do you know your greatest quality? You don't give a moment's thought to anyone. You stay absorbed in your own clarity. I've never heard you say anything bad about anyone. You're different from everyone. Why do you love me? Are you never angry? I love you so much that I need no reason at all.
Leaving you to go back home—I didn’t even want to do that. Again and again, I’d think: that’s where I belong.
You are my beloved, and somehow you make my days beautiful, make them still and quiet. Your greatest beauty is how much you fill the space—I step into you, and then my eyes cannot help but fill with tears! You’ve loved me so tenderly, given me such completeness, that all the love in the world feels like a single drop of water beside it—and always will.
If only I could forget you! Then perhaps I wouldn’t burn the way I do. Forgetting is a blessing, you know—not everyone God grants it to. Why does the mosquito always return to the same vein, drinking again and again?
Let no one else know this, but you know: hidden in your chest is a small world that is mine. There, the fish curry I made with clumsy hands still clings to the pot; there’s the soft smell of egg in lentils with potato; there’s the sharp bite of mustard in fried eggplant and potato curry. There is selfless love. Hidden in your chest is a home that is mine! I know—love alone can bind a person. Nothing else in this world can hold someone the way love does. I gave you all of that, all the way through. I never thought of anything else. So when you say I’ve consumed you, I don’t know what I feel—not something negative, no. I only took your love without hesitation. I love you. This love is pure, solid, real. Only you know how much it delights me to see you happy and alive.
2. When girls in college, or first-year honors students, fall in love, they don’t give a second glance to businessmen or office workers. Then their boyfriend studies at Dhaka University, or BUET, or Medical College—and they boast about it, take credit for it, whether he’s their age, a junior, or a senior. But when marriage comes up, that same girl says: What am I supposed to do with a boyfriend’s Dhaka University certificate? You can’t drink water by washing that, can you? Life won’t run on that! Then she marries a businessman or an office worker! These days girls want credit for everything! What good does all this credit do—who knows?