forgiveness

Thousands of kilometers away – so far that it doesn’t even matter how far – in the morning (after you’ve left, perhaps even from the memories of my heart but one can’t be certain of that) I get up and have a cup of tea – spiced Assam in winters, Darjeeling first flush in summers, with just a splash of milk – and talk to people (not too many, not even a few – just a couple really) in sentences not even slightly poetic, in words not at all beautiful, discussing things – can you believe it? Sometimes I can’t – that have nothing to do with literature. The red shoes, the ones I photographed, I don’t have them anymore, I wear them only in your imagination. My voice changes its tone with each language, my hair is now longer, my nails – perpetually red in your mind – sometimes have no colour. Sometimes, I know that you don’t know, I wear roses in my hair for no reason, and sometimes I don’t think about death, about the inevitable sorrows of the heart, or the general absence of goodness.

My love, who will believe it – not even you – that it is I who write these letters. Who will believe it, then, that my nights are a strange mix of chaos and poetry; that sometimes with the lamp switched off, reading your words I’ve felt what I think has no name. Who will believe it, my love, – not even me -, that this life can sometimes be stranger than any dream I’ve ever had.

My dear, when someone inevitably asks me in a court if I’ve ever felt love, if I’ve ever known the unknowable, please look away. I, with the book in my hand, like Duras, will falsely declare: I saw nothing in Hiroshima.