Oh you, love of my life,
I was mistaken.
It wasn't you, it wasn't you,
or it wasn't just you,
and I cherished another.
That you were you, that you were,
that you bore your name,
that you gazed with your eyes,
and that you knew me.

What am I to do now
with this love, with letters
that I penned for whom?
What will I do with my life,
with what I am, with verses
that now mock me?
I thought of leaving everything,
I thought of sinking in the ocean,
I regret that a convent
is no longer possible.

Day by day I look at myself,
I look at you and it amuses me,
and I think of sinking in the ocean,
and always I postpone it.
I think of other things, I think
that maybe you are the other,
that perhaps one night
a crust will break,
that a miracle will deliver you
and I will see that it was you,
the one I loved, the one I love.

1449

You are not mine,
you are not
in my life,
by my side.
You do not eat at my table,
nor laugh nor sing,
nor live for me.
We are strangers,
you
and I,
myself,
and my home.
What can I do,
what can I give to you?
You are a stranger,
a guest
who neither seeks nor wants
more than a bed
sometimes,
but I live alone.

1445

Even the heavens weep in envy of the tender touch that I, alas, cannot bestow upon you.

2023

Every word I write restores me to the absence for which I write what I wouldn't write if I let you return here.

A muted pianist lost among the stars, and his fingers touching my ribs. All I desire is to see you once more; this as our final wish.

If I were to see you for the last time, I would have the piano embrace its demise. Just as now, with you far away, a piano bursts through the broken hollows.

Near the fire that bound us together, in the deep hearth of the forest house, a reddish moon veils the poplars, and I can no longer approach you in any way.

And I fall to my knees by the dying fire. I want to ask if there is any escape; flames answer me with a flicker toward the door, and warm ashes fall into my palms.

I would ask you back, but I have no one to ask, and the rest is Chopin and silence.

I hear a piano playing Chopin—an ordinary piano concert—through crystalline snow. And I'm not with you, alas, not with you.

The road is long, and the night is vast. I grow tired of winter; you tire of tears. I miss you, like my own childhood, someone who was never meant to be.

Strange sounds and beasts are heard in the night—chimeras and whispers of snowfall. The sky smells of smoke and sins.

I crawl on elbows, searching for you on the pillow. The pendulum, like a death rope, is ready, moving as if tightening my tie. And the blood in the wounded wound is cold.

I hear a piano, a distant Chopin, of which neither of us has a share. And what were we saying about love being eternal?

ㅤTwo-towered Castle

It feels like it was just yesterday, the morning I saw my first poem printed in a newspaper. I stayed in my attic, dreaming, happy with myself. I immediately constructed an imaginary castle.

The castle had two towers; one was large, and one was small. The large one was inhabited by an immortal poet, the small one by a beautiful young soul.

My architectural plan felt flawless to me. Yet, it appeared much more modest later: to the sobered-up builder, the large tower seemed too narrow, and the small one too little to be spoken of anymore!

ㅤ  
You Are So Yours

Your eyes grow sad; your ears turn deaf to my words. I say what I have, sadly, said so many times already.

You look at me suddenly, with a vague, distant stare and an absent gaze.

A smile emerges slowly. I keep talking, and you keep listening to what you are thinking.

Until in this listless mirth, like the futile afternoon, your useless smile fades as well.

Sanyue 29, 1444

ㅤ
Tell Me, My Love

Do you remember the poppy
that burned in the summer,
the shriveled marigold,
the charcoal crepe of the countryside?

Do you remember the tender reeds
that turned limply lemon-yellow,
the wilted cattails,
the water lilies in the dry riverbed?

Do you remember the humble sun
that shivered and shone,
upon a frozen fountain,
when it died in the warm forenoon?

Shiyue 06, 1447

ㅤ
Tonight's Guest

The wind flickered the lantern,
The door clicked without a knock.
Tonight's guest has a name: Relin.
Just last year, she died.

I took each wooden step,
Creak—by—creak, one at a time.
I wished to turn and run,
To escape my own home.

But, as in every dream,
I could not scream.
I peeled back curtain after curtain,
Anxious to see and to not see.

The woman I once knew,
But had then ceased to be.
And if I did see her,
What would her looks be?

A drained, mottled, rotten cadaver,
Still, dragging behind her
Each step tattered
Burial clothing?

How else could she be
After her long rest in the earth,
Her abdomen bloated and ruptured,
Crawling with the insects it birthed?

And her eyes—those same eyes;
How startling would her eyes be,
Now gray, opaque, and cloudy,
Unhinged at one side.

Relin, Oh Relin, how sorry
I feel—honestly,
And forever will I be,
If you'll only believe me.

You had your eyes on my beloved,
And both of his were on you,
That filled in me an agonizing envy,
Such that I wished you dead;

But never had I imagined it would be
At my own hand.