Thought's Bonsai: Fifty-One

1. All that you yourself destroyed within me,
today you dare to question me about those very things!

2. What is this arrogance of wealth? What can it truly buy?
I sold myself to my own riches long ago!

3. Sometimes,
when faced with the wealthy,
it's the poor who turn on their own!

4. Before you came into this life,
I missed you terribly.
After you came into this life,
now I miss life itself!

5. You're not a bad person.
But you won't get along with yourself.
I'm not a bad person either.
But you won't get along with me.
If we part ways, at least our mutual respect will survive.

6. What I couldn't understand, you could never hope to grasp.
Had I known this before, I wouldn't have come close.

7. I don't obstruct your religious practice at all!
Why then do you drag me toward your faith so crudely?

8. There were so many games in this world!
Yet you had to choose my heart to play with!

9. Even if the journey grows hard, let's walk on—
if the destination is something worth reaching!

10. Even after blocking you everywhere, I found no peace!
Now you come to me in dreams...

11. I see you're giving so many saris and jewels!
Are you perhaps keeping her at a distance these days?

12. However much I miss you,
I miss far more that version of you
who used to miss me!

13. I didn't let you go because
you couldn't be kept;
rather, I let you go because
keeping you would have caused you great pain!

14. If life ever becomes a mess,
call me that day; I'll set it right.

15. Some relationships break the moment you name them!
Now tell me, what matters more? The name of the relationship, or us?

16. Don't sacrifice love for yourself to embrace love for another.
If you do, then on the day they disappear, you'll find you no longer recognize yourself!

17. The easiest love to win is from someone
who counts messages and phone calls to measure affection!

18. Didn't you come bearing an ocean of love?
Yet now you've fled, leaving me thirsty!?

19. Do I seem very cheerful to you?
At first glance, even a graveyard looks like a park!

20. Before finding you, I didn't understand love.
Before losing you, I didn't know pain.