Through the ventilator's gap, the night

Sometimes tears fall like blood, somehow!
You know there are words that never get spoken?
I don't know why, some feelings just can't be explained!
Why do some words have no language for expression?
Why is it like this? Why can't life be the way it would be good to be?
Why has love become so helpless, so utterly?
Why is it so weak and so powerless?


You took me, and that world of my own I had—you took that too!
You consumed my solitude, the completeness that was...you gave that,
and made yourself empty in disguise before your own eyes!
Just as the moon devours the sun,
that's how you took me in total eclipse...
But did I really get you at all?
Why are you such a 'you' that this 'you' isn't even mine?
That you're still not here—what emptiness could be greater than this?
You stay there, stay there,
inside you, outside you too...everywhere I see only you...
Why then do I still see everything empty?


This absence of yours makes my blood flow...
You're not beside me, and just this much makes me so distraught,
the day you leave completely, what will keep me alive?
To whom will I make so many complaints that day? Who else will hear so many reproaches?
On whose chest will I hide my face and cry in anger and hurt that day?
To whom will I go, making all these loving demands?
To whom will I say...I love you!
Before I'm finished, you've already dug my grave, haven't you, tell me?
See that I don't finish first out of too much hurt and hesitation!
Then at least put away all your neglect on the shelf!


Sometimes it comes to mind, this soul is stuck somewhere...
just thrashing about, imprisoned in a distant cage!
In this life it will probably never be free again!
Have you heard of such—someone's body here, yet their mind stuck somewhere else?
Don't these words seem strange and bizarre?
Do they sound ridiculous too? Do they beg to be wrapped in mockery and hurled away?
...I would have too! Once I used to laugh so much at such things!
I'd laugh them off and have my fun!
That same me today binds my mind, keeps it uselessly busy with work...
I've done this before, I've done it many times!


When new bonds come, do old bonds call death?
When new people enter life, does it mean the old people have died?
I've seen many, even in shadows it doesn't happen like this! Why doesn't it happen?
Those who come new, they adjust very cleverly,
keep me well, bind me neatly...their effort shows so clearly!
But look! None of them take hold in my mind!
It never even occurs to me by mistake that in my world as it is, there are other people besides you!
How do you too manage to tell me...to hold another's hand,
to build a home in another house, to seek light in other eyes!


You show those colorful dreams whenever you get a chance!
Don't I understand all this?
I can understand that you're really very worried about me!
You explain that I'll live happily in another home just like this,
and again you say, even then you'll stay beside me!
You'll stay mine for the entire life just like this.
It's not that I don't understand what your words mean!
I won't say I haven't tried to understand either.
These days I can't force this bound mind to do anything!
I've done so much, now truly those things don't happen anymore, you know?


One thing. This way you keep saying, I'm here beside you, I'll stay like this...
can you actually tell me where you are?
Are you really still here?
Do you call even this being here?
How are you here, tell me, think about it?
Do I ever get to have you as my own?
Do you ever put your hand on your chest and say...
I gave you this time! This time is only your time!
In this time no one else has any share!
...let that time be very little, is even that little there at all?


I accepted it, I accepted completely, you can't keep me,
I won't get all your touch all the time!
But does that mean we can't even talk?
Don't you have anything called 'time for me'?
One can love from afar, stay close...if the heart wants.
What? It can't be done, you say?
You don't keep me close, don't stay close,
you don't let go, but where are you holding me?
Sometimes do you know what happens in my mind?
It feels like in this acting of binding the mind and being forced, I'll truly go mad someday!


Can you tell me, how much more will I adjust?
How much bigger must I become to forget you?
When will I understand what this life is like?
That you're never mine, you never were!
If you were to stay, could you then stab this heart like this?
Could you give so many rows of wounds?
Could you, tell me, confuse and cajole and make me understand something, whatever happens?
I know, truly you couldn't have!
Yet see, you've kept me like this through thousands of moments!
Does anyone keep someone they love this way?
The one I never got, in this one life I got only him!


Today I won't stay quiet, today I'll only complain!
Don't I feel like talking with you a little...hearing that voice of yours?
How much longer will I wait like this?
Will I truly never get you again?
If you won't give alms to a beggar, then why have you kept him standing there?
Then at least drive him away! Tell him to die today!
Let him go to other doors, or let him die unfed this time!
Let him die, that's better too...but don't bind anyone in hope!


These days whenever I look in the mirror, I seem very inappropriate to myself!
Wherever I go, apparently I can adjust and fit in very well...
Everyone speaks very well of me, draws me close too!
With everyone everywhere...whatever the situation, I fit right in!
One who adjusts, speaks very humbly with lowered voice,
amuses everyone, cares for everyone, such a person I am...exactly to everyone's liking!
I am such a person...like everyone's beloved wooden doll!
Seeing this form of mine these days fills me with disgust!
I am this way, I am that way...but where am I in all this?
This is all their version of me, where is my version of me?


What do I want?
With everyone, trying to adjust and fit in according to the wind, I've lost myself today!
I can't find that very existence of mine!
No, I don't live here anymore.
But where do I live? Truly I'm nowhere!
This is truly not me, this is only my body,
my dead form, my impotent corpse!
I wasn't like this, I was never like this...
I was the free sky or like that bird flying with spread wings.
Whenever I wished, however I wished, I flew morning and evening.
I wasn't according to anyone else's mind, I never tried to be like that either.
I was like myself, I was completely free in my own will!


Look at all the colorful birds in the sky...how they all adorn themselves!
When you put it in a cage, does the bird's life remain a bird's?
Then it's just a showpiece for decorating the house!
It flaps its wings only to color others' minds!
And I am probably something like that now!
Everyone keeps me carefully, keeps me to show, they too have a bird.
How beautiful...when you make the bird recite taught words, it speaks fluently indeed!
Everyone is enchanted, applause follows!
In this joy, who keeps track of that bird's heart?
How does that free bird of the sky, that small caged bird, live?


That bird stands still in sun or storm, in winter and rain...
everything seems the same to it!
The bird leaves one room, goes to another room.
Whichever room it goes to, the bird blends very well with that room's furniture!
No one sees the bird separately, they think of it as just another piece of furniture!
Whatever the bird gets to eat, it eats that,
wherever they give it to stay, it stays there.
When the time comes it lays eggs, sometimes hatches babies, that much work...what else then!
This way eating, living, resting, finishing, one day the bird just dies.
Will that bird never be freed?
Won't it be able to spread its wings in the free sky?
And probably it won't fly again before dying!


I'm quite a toy now, aren't I, tell me?
Today this one makes me dance, tomorrow that one too!
Now that you've got me, take your time making me dance!
I am nothing but a toy anymore!
You too have such a wish...you'll write a new play,
in that play I'll dance exactly as you want!
This powerless mind of mine will stay only in your hands,
you'll turn the reel and string, the kite will fly in that sky!
The body too is just like that, you want only those things,
when someone else comes, they'll snatch it away, even after that
whenever you need me as per your demand, immediately you'll pull the string with a jerk!
With another tug you'll bring me close,
while I'll only watch the spectacle!


Can a kite fly without the reel?
Can a kite hold its own reel by itself?
And when the kite's string is cut...does it ever fly again...
in that sky, in free form?
It falls face-first to the ground, or gets caught on some high branch or wire,
thrashing terribly, slowly it finishes over time!
Can you tell me the difference between me and that kite?
Don't come close, don't give time,
don't love well, don't show affection,
keep me only in neglect, in carelessness!
The day I truly finish, when you can't get this much anymore like this,
when even wanting to, I can't come close anymore, that day understand, just understand,
how deep the wound of not-having is, exactly how much blood flows inside!