Thinking Bonsai: Two Hundred Nineteen

1) Be as hard on yourself
as you are gentle with others.

This is the first step toward becoming human!

2) Your fragrance is exquisite!
If I wished to spend the rest of my life
with my nose buried in you...
would you let me?

3) In a place that isn't yours,
trying to make yourself fit—
how much smaller will you become?

4) Once, when someone said they loved me, I'd believe it and be overwhelmed.
Now I think to myself: Oh, I see!

5) In most marriages born of love,
the first thing to disappear
is love itself.

6) The girl who came first in every class
knows so much about everything, except...
how to be good to herself.

7) Those who have left—
I'm perfectly fine without them!

Oh, what foolish things I used to think!

8) How many people join our laughter and conversations with genuine warmth...
while secretly despising us!

9) - Does it still burn?
- Emptiness has no expiration date.

(10) - So in the end, is white all that remains?
- In sun, in rain, in storms, every color fades! Only white is left behind.

(11) - But you promised precious jewels?
- I'm giving them, dear—everything is yours.

(12) - Do you see yourself in different mirrors these days?
- At day's end, all birds return to their nests; perhaps it's only in daylight that they lose their way.

(13) - Do you still visit... that neighborhood?
- Golden shower vines never become orchids. They bloom only in home courtyards.

(14) - Tired?
- Time's revolution.

(15) - Is this that very lament, the primal darkness I glimpsed at dusk?
- Evening turns crimson, beginning a long silence... just Bohemian broken rhythm.

16) How foolish is the one
whose own beauty
is destroyed by
another's ugliness.

17) Once someone gets
what they need from you,
what use is staying
by your side?

18) People begin to feel heavy
under the weight of their own sighs...
born in the womb of overthinking.

19) I despise those who find joy
in sharing the secrets of relationships
with third parties.

20) You don't always have to win.
Sometimes, for the sake of keeping yourself whole,
you must lose.