What's written on the torn scrap of paper

 
You say I let you win,
You say I choose to lose...
Like a defeated bird, I fall laughing into your sky.
Perhaps one day you'll say this too—
I'm quite the seasoned old thief!


I know how to pay the heart's true price.
Alas, you alone don't know
how precious you truly are in this home of mine!
When you strip me bare like this,
when I stand kneeling in that dock,
then I too wait, restless and watching...
Now let me have my trial,
let there be a real reckoning for all this—I want this too!


But tell me, who is your judge?
To whom shall I give my testimony?
And who will be my witness?
I know it all! Even before this verdict comes
I sit here knowing what the judgment will be!
My defeat is inevitable!


I have no witness,
I have no lawyer,
when you strike me with arrows of questions,
where do my loves disappear to?


Deep in my chest, a cry of anguish
fills my stone-hard heart with lament!
Digging through that outer stone, your lawyer
cannot find the water that flows within me.
He thinks, this must be who I am! This must be how I love!


The question arises: how much can I truly be yours?
Where is that worthiness in me?
If it exists, then why do I keep losing, again and again?
Why do I willingly shoulder the blame for theft, laughing?
If I have such wealth, then why don't I show
even a drop of it?
What kind of love is this of mine!


Or perhaps you think sometimes
that I summon the kingdom's joy precisely by losing!
How much do I really know you!
Ask your judge,
when was the last time he tried a case of love?
Which side won that day?
The one who took everything by winning—was he so wealthy?
The one who lost laughing—did he truly lose anything?


I too have a household within this heart.
All the responsibility for that household is mine alone!
Does your lawyer know how to measure
where and why and how much defeat there is in judgment?
And all my questions' answers—does he know them?
He doesn't, does he? Sir, I know that search well!


When I see you losing to yourself,
when you keep losing even to me,
tell me, do you really lose then?
Or is it actually I who lose?
Have you found out who that person is, who
wants to win even before you do...within your very victory?


When you win, long before that my love has already won!
Then there's nothing left that I can call defeat!
The day this feeling dresses up wonderfully in new clothes,
that day you'll see who really won...
What kind of victory is it, where by winning I lose you?
If I can only win you,
I'll accept defeat even if it equals a whole world!


Why throw around pointless questions—
What comes first for me?
Where is my victory?
...What do these questions even mean?
Truly, you are a strange person!


Apart from you alone
what other world do I have!
I have just one note,
with only one question written there—of one word,
and its answer too—of just one word!
Finding you satisfies my hunger for roaming the world,
not finding you leaves me naked even to myself!


Tell me, what else do I have to call my own?
I'm just a beggar on the road!
My loves scold me terribly...
they say, what do you have then?
At day's end the world will remain as it is,
forests mountains clouds rain...they'll all stay as they are,
those snakes and scorpions crawling on earth...they too will have a life,
dawn will come, night will end,
billions of stars' eyes will bloom,
there'll be processions of stars, the moon will be the merchant,
there'll be crowds in everyday markets,
at evening fireflies will pierce through that darkness,
morning wind will wash away everything with its gentle body,
just the scent of gunpowder will subdue an entire war,
that old cloud will keep running around the same sky,
destiny will surely float someone's raft with them as passenger,
in the game of changing seasons green will change color in familiar ways,
...everywhere everything will go on as it does now or did before,
yet nowhere there will I find you!


Everything goes on just fine, as it should,
nothing ever stops for anyone!
If that too is winning,
then tell me what I gained from that victory?
Of all I lost, is the share of gain heavier?
Does anyone lose a greater loss than not finding you?
Is there a bigger theft case in any court?


Your lawyer knows the answer well!
Ask him if you want!
...Sir, tell me after thinking, exactly how many came in the calculation, how many went in exchange?
How much victory was there? How much went wrong?


For me all victory has just one name—
that's only you, only you!
If I don't get you, if I lose you through my own fault,
then know this: having everything, I've still lost!
There's nothing left for me to lose anew!


Without you nothing exists anywhere!
Without you it means only my death!
Without you whatever wealth there is, has no mind in it!
Without you in this palace only spiders weave their webs!
Without you in this life, its name becomes 'torn note'!