What Is True

That I cannot live without you — this is as much a lie
as it is true that without you
I can never be well again.

If you don't come, don't appear, truly nothing much will come or go;
but the greater truth is this: if you don't return
I won't ask anyone else to come.
These eyes of mine that have not seen you
will never want to see another face.

Loving you, I have become a beggar day by day;
this self of mine never wants to become
some proud beloved again
by receiving another's love.

I have shown you, turning and turning, the inner chambers of my heart;
forget telling someone else about them—
until there remains not even the smallest corner
in my mind's modest courtyard
for another's claim, know this!

Do you remember how I would stay up all night
talking with you about the smallest things?
Now that you have gone away,
no one will ever find again such childlike ways in me,
no one will believe, seeing this almost-mute me today,
that once I too could talk so much with someone.