It’s been over a month that our correspondence lies forlorn and neglected, having suddenly ceased on a topic that had sparked a variety of most scintillating discussions even among less gifted individuals than the two parties involved, of which most of the world’s classic literature is a humble evidence. The culprit, again, is the eternal subject of Love that renders you skeptical, defensive and petrified, stripping your imagination from the very levity that marks the true dignity of your wit, and making you regard me as though I were a mortal enemy to your safety, prosperity and assurance. Needless to say what profound pain it sentences me to as I am dragged through the evergreen memories of the halcyon days of our youth when untold raptures were but a step away while one of us didn’t have the courage, and the other the strength, to overcome this negligible distance. As the years went by, and the implacable truth revealed itself, I have learned to accept that I meant nothing more to you than a vague reminder of your womanly value, the variable that have been doubted throughout your life by many a worthless scoundrel, leading to gradual erosion of your self-confidence and confining you to a tight cage of suspicion and fear. And yet there is still a sting in my heart that stings it with sharp pain whenever my wandering mind stumbles on a reminder in its own right.
My dearest mistress, the flame of my soul, the torture of my desire! How often it is that I shiver in sleepless nights, thinking about you walking the smoky maze of your everyday life without the slightest consideration of me, without the briefest moment of wholehearted warmth toward my unrequited feelings! You have preferred so many men to my relentless passion that, it would seem, my soul should have grown appropriately callous to withstand the abrasive touch of new encounters with your indifference; but what seems sound in a calculating world of soulless logic falls short of the loving heart. What is most horrible to me, however, is not that those men are more desirable to you than a passionate poet who wished to sacrifice his life for your happiness and immortalized you in some of his finest works. No, what paralyzes me with despondent melancholy is the certainty that none of those men, good and bad, charming and brutal, faithful and treacherous, will ever be able to appreciate you as you deserve to be appreciated. The soul that hides within you is akin to an exotic bird drinking nectar from a wonderful flower growing on a precious gem, and the thought of this miracle of creation slipping unnoticed under the noses of men who claimed the ultimate intimacy with you awakens me in the morning like a blow of a bronze club on the head.
I am writing these lines while my eyes are soaked with bitter tears and my inner crumbles at the notion of palpable coldness you’ve wrapped me with, adding new layers as the days go by. While we are separated by the worst of distances which makes its physical counterpart seem but a merciful alternative, pray, tell me: what am I to do in dire moments when the world doesn’t amass to one happy smile on your face? How am I to quench my sufferings when the impossibility of holding you in my arms draws an ugly mockery of my love on soft, white paper? You’ve never been merciful to me, true, opting to sink the dagger deeper, ostensibly hoping to murder the sweet, tender feelings I had for you finally and irrevocably; but perhaps by now you’ve realized that the immortality of my passion will only bring endless pain in response to your endless cruelty. Time falls on my temples as lead, and if there is any light at the end of this wretched tunnel, it exudes from the image of you with your heart wide open to love: the only source of happiness and fulfillment available to a human being.
by Danil Rudoy
Love poetry