To break form, one needs a body

 
For seventeen years I have watched you in secret.
I have loved it deeply…even without having you,
to have so much of you hidden, concealed!


I have seen you gazing down at the earth,
you had not yet learned to walk looking up at the sky.
I have seen you turn your head with such shy glances
this way and that, in hesitation or perhaps in shame
drawing yourself inward as you spoke.


I have seen the radiance of your boyish face,
crossing youth, slowly becoming a man,
in the glow of your prime I have felt the hint of your completeness…
Believe me, at every stage you have grown more beautiful, more whole!


Will you not tell me, how much purer must I become
in the pyre's burning to be worthy of you?
Are you such a destroyer only with me?
Do you hurl at my eyes alone all of life's contrary claims?


Before I die,
I will beseech my beloved deity,
that he might show you the anguish of my heart!
Even after death I will wait to see your remorse…


With such pitiless eyes you have spent an entire life!
Seeing you, I have understood, my dear,
those who receive love do not know how to give it.


Even after my death,
someday feel it once and say—I love you!
You will say it…remembering me?


You will finish me…
not some killer's deadly weapon,
not some fatal disease,
…only your emptiness!


Knowing I will never have you
I carry the pain
of living in wait for you! This is not easy, beloved!


That you will understand me—I have not hoped for so much.
That I will understand you—such happiness is not in your fate.
From this cycle there is no escape in this life, is there?


How to live forgetting you—about this
I have read much, heard much, thought much.
After all that, what happened was, I realized,
to forget you I would need only you!