Thoughts in Bonsai: One Hundred Twenty-One

1.
: You don't believe that I understand your heart?
: I do. It's because you understand that you know exactly where to strike to hurt me most!

2.
: Why would I strike?
: The wounds that once brought you to this great place—you've decided to inflict those same wounds on me, training me through repetition to become your worthy successor.

3.
: What if I said you wound yourself?
: Oh my, where would you find the time to hurl so many syllables at me all at once!?

4.
: Don't I give you time?
: Whatever little you give, I can clearly sense that you don't really want to give even that much!

5.
: You know, I always wished I had someone in my life I could just call whenever I felt like it and say, "I'm feeling sad."
: Can't you tell me that too?
: I never even saved your number!

6.
: I truly love you.
: Darling, go tell your friends such things, or write them in love stories. I find it utterly hilarious when I hear this.

7.
: You know, loving you brings me such joy, yet thinking that you have no existence beyond this ethereal world makes me want to spit on myself in disgust!

8.
: If I go far away, will you stop loving me?
: Were you ever really here with me!?

9. When even a dog can tell the difference between love and neglect, here I am, a human being...

10.
: Whatever you feel like saying, tell me—speak freely.
: Is it only when the time comes to close one's heart that one finally finds someone to speak openly with!?

11.
: You think very highly of yourself, don't you?
: Don't you think highly of me?
: I never knew that one day I'd have to bargain for you too!

12.
: Poet, how can I hold God within myself?
: One whose heart brims with desire—
where will they find God?

13.
: Will you really leave? You who once begged so desperately to stay right here with me!
: You are truly extraordinary... one can dwell in heaven with such a person, but earth is for ordinary folk, a place of quarrels and mischief!

14. You cause me so much pain, but I'll take it! When it comes from you, I can endure it—I can't bear others' cruelty as well.

15.
: Is love the only condition for living in this world?
: No, one can live without it too; but what kind of living that is—please, don't ask me to tell you!

16.
: Love me a little in your spare time, won't you?
: It's precisely that fear that made me give up leisure altogether!

17.
: Why do you spend your nights awake?
: I'm afraid to dream, that's why...

18.
: Do our memories come to you?
: Things that are part of my very life—you call them memories!?

19.
: Since you don't want me to, fine, I won't return either.
: Ha ha... you made this decision long ago, and now you're telling me! And yet again, you're putting the blame on me?

20.
: Hearing your daily death wishes makes me want to die too.
: You're not that brave, nor will you ever be!