With My Own Tears, Some Stories

When I said I was leaving, did your heart truly cry out,
or did you only feel afraid for a moment?
I still can't quite tell.

Never before tonight had we stayed awake so long
talking to each other like this.
What you were trying to say through all those hours
remains unclear to me still,
because you began one subject
then wove many others into it.
The main point was never spoken.
So I couldn't understand
which words were meant for me,
or if any subject was meant for me at all.

Did you call thinking I was hurt by your behavior,
trying to comfort me?
Or were you hurt by what I'd written,
calling to soothe yourself?
Which way did the urgency really come from?
You spoke in your own way,
I listened in silence.
Whatever you say, I always love hearing you speak—
for one reason only: I love you so much.

As I listen, bit by bit
I try to know you, understand you.
This effort of mine hovers like your shadow,
wanting to stay near you for a long time.
From my heart I want to know
every aspect of you, more or less.
What behavior hurts you,
what brings you joy,
what irritates you,
what spoils your mood—
I want to understand it all.

I want to understand so that I might become,
at least a little, the kind of person
you want to love in your life.
I know this isn't possible,
it isn't easy, and likely
I won't be able to.
But I want this desire to understand you
to remain unbroken within me.

By now you'd said so much,
everything your heart wanted to say.
When I began to speak,
sleep seized your eyes!
I kept talking in my own way,
kept talking and talking,
but you weren't there on the other end.
After a while I realized
the line had been cut long ago!
Yes, you called back—I didn't notice.
I understood it was a network problem.
Thinking you hadn't heard a single word I said,
a long sigh settled deep in my chest with such pain!

I've explained to myself quite clearly
that because of your busy life,
you'll never really have time to listen to me properly.
You've probably fallen asleep by now!
I've sat down to write to you—
if I don't write, the unsaid tears
will turn to complaints and gather in my chest,
and it's impossible to love someone
with so many complaints stored in your heart.

In my diary, beside the name I write you under,
I've written these words:
'He is my time-wasting beloved!'
You don't know that I think of you
as my life's circle—circumference—relations—family...
everything.
Setting aside the entire outside world,
I keep myself terribly busy day and night
within your four walls.
Now you alone have become the center
of all my irregularities in eating, bathing, sleeping!

Before loving you, I found myself
a dedicated, industrious person
for whom nothing was more important
than time, than work.
And after falling in love with you,
I've made you so important in my life
that I'm becoming less and less important
to myself day by day,
and so are my tasks!

To tell the truth, sometimes I feel fierce anger toward you.
Why should another person have more priority
than I do to myself?
How is this possible!
This shouldn't happen at all!
You're the one who says
people ultimately live for themselves.
I should live for myself too, shouldn't I?

How strange! Why should one person
stay in everything of another person
all the time in the name of love!
I can't quite understand this,
and because I can't understand it,
I can't understand myself either!

Well, why did you call?
Why was there so much anxiety in your voice?
What did you really want to tell me?
That you love me,
that I should forget my hurt feelings
and stay with you—something like that?

But you didn't say it! Why didn't you?
Your ego, your pride...
were they aligned with your desire?
You know, I wanted to hear...
I wanted to hear you tell me—
I've begun to love you fiercely,
even if I sometimes get angry
and make mistakes with wrong behavior,
don't leave me.
When your anger subsides,
when your hurt feelings heal...
forgetting the world,
love me again with fresh eyes, how about that?
I truly love you terribly!

But you didn't say a single word I expected!
Maybe you don't love me—that's why.
Maybe you love countless women at once,
each woman just a character
in your life's story!
That is, they're all food
for your living—more precisely,
for your writing.
You understand timing—sometimes
you color their various emotions
with the hue of love...
simply for the necessity of staying alive.
Maybe you have no responsibility whatsoever
for staying with someone long through love—
the responsibility belongs only
to whoever will love you.

Someone enters your life,
loves you fiercely,
fills their heart with an ocean of hurt
and silently leaves.
After understanding all this,
carrying a little regret
or slight separation-pain in your heart,
you simply write a poem!
That's it! All finished!
After that you'll never have time
to remember the person who left—
you'll move on to your next poem.
That poem will have intense love,
deep affection,
all the sky's tears will fall
torrentially in separation,
along with all aspects
of the poet's forbearance!
But in reality, the poet may never have time
to check on that person.

This is all the love of poet-writers.
You know, don't you, that for ages
poets and writers are born
to turn others' feelings and love
into food for their own writing!
They can fall into any love unhesitatingly
just to write a love poem!
To write a poem of separation
they can even flee far away
after ending relationships without sorrow!
They want to turn everything into creation—
hiding all their cruelty,
and in time, these very creations
speak for them again.
You've actually tied your life tight
in such a cycle.

Sometimes I understand
I'm like any of ten ordinary women in your life.
I know I'll never become part of your lived life—
at best I might become
the slightest reference in some writing of yours
for a brief time!

You know, whether you love me or not—
I don't really keep this as a matter for consideration.
Because I don't think of myself
as anything special in your life,
any different from some other lover of yours
hidden away somewhere.
If I started thinking that way,
I'd stand against
your countless writings—
looking for appropriate reasons.

Then again I'd write thousands of words
to wound and bloody you,
which you wouldn't like at all.
So I've decided in my mind—
as long as I can love you
knowing and understanding everything about you,
I'll stay with you.
If I ever lose my capacity to bear it,
I'll very quietly go away somewhere far.

I know that however much I leave you,
mentally you'll remain
much closer to me than this.
Those who aren't poets,
who aren't writers,
whose paper and pen don't construct
and reconstruct love,
who can't think and write
their feelings of love—
they're forced to carry
that love in their hearts
for age after age.

Whether you love me or not,
loving you, many of my words
stand facing you.
My dreams crowd
in your ocean.
Sitting on that ocean's shore,
keeping dreams as companions,
unfolding the gentle, peaceful, solitary night
fold by fold,
I love you every day.

I don't need you to love you—
I've said this before.
Because now I've learned
to walk through your heart.
I understand that sometimes
my pain touches you, at least a little.
Then I can rest my head
between your knees
and sleep with tearless eyes
in the certainty of indefinite time.
I know you've given me
entire nights sometimes,
and sometimes entire evenings or afternoons—
even without being present before me.

In one glance from your eyes,
in one sincere touch,
I live millions and millions of years.
Now that you've come close once,
don't go away somewhere far again.

I know that with time
you'll dissolve into many colorful faces,
various relationships!
This is the rule.
Poets and writers are drawn much more
to different fascinations.
They almost always run toward something new—
for the purpose of creating something new.
New faces, new minds, new bodies...
however quickly these can pull them close,
old love can't hold them that close.
This is a harsh reality!

I often tell you—
even if thousands of women enter your life,
I have no problem with it,
your happiness is my happiness.
I'm admitting now that of all the things
I've said to you,
this was the only lie,
and a terrible lie!

For my beloved to touch another woman
in the same magic, the same love
with which he touches me—
this is impossible for me to accept
in this life, that life, any life.
If I ever leave you while still alive,
the only reason could be another woman.
Except for this, there won't be
a single other reason in the world
to leave you—
and if there were,
I wouldn't indulge it in any way.

Remember, however many times I bid you farewell,
however I may say it,
each time there's always
an eager waiting within me
to return to you again.

I'm telling you now—
even if waves of separation come,
don't let the bond of sincerity break.
However many times I run away
caught in separation's grip,
each time take me to your chest
with love and care.
You are both my sky and earth,
the destination of both.
The night intoxicated
in solitude's ancient assembly,
the green carpet blooming on earth,
you who remain outside
the mad crowd...
completely mine.
I see you like moonlit light
on deep mountains.
I see you in the form
of the banyan tree's shadow.
You are each breath
that fills my chest.
The pain I get from loving you—
even that I understand as happiness.

I love you even while bearing
the poisonous love stories
of your former lovers.
Listening to you speak of them,
my chest burns to ashes.
Why did you love them so well?
And why do you love me so little?
I know you have no answer for this.
You people never have answers for this.

Still, the joy you get
from telling your past—
that joy, in some places,
makes me joyful too.
So I listen to everything,
understand everything,
and wrap around your body
in deep love
like wild vines.
For ages and ages
foolish girls' love is like this—
you should know this for certain.

You are worshippers of beauty from birth.
You become enchanted by any body
in mere seconds!
Before love happens with the mind,
before affection develops with the mind—
you lie down with bodies,
sacrificing all shame, hesitation, awkwardness!
For you people, a healthy, fair body is enough—
love doesn't quite matter.

In our country, eighty percent of women
have no proper work.
When they love someone,
they stick behind them like glue
with blind faith!
Today I consider myself one of them!

I love you—with hundreds of wonderments,
like a seedling growing through emptiness,
like some secret happiness in my chest.
The lights from your daily creations
gather in my brain, my nerves.
In dreams, in beauty...
in all forms new and old,
I hold you within myself—
from sunrise to sunset!
I love you, splitting my chest
like a night-blooming flower.

I know that someday
you'll play the game of running away,
you'll exhaust yourself by your own need,
finishing all your emotional accounts.
So I'm also saying—
I don't love you well
to get you, to keep you trapped with me.
I love you to tell some stories
to my own tears.