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[Doi Dien] Paper
Paper
Le Quang Tuan (translated by Nguyen Quoc Vinh)
May night
Head sunk on desk
Dozing off
Midnight
Suddenly awaken
In restless pining for someone presently far away
Summer in California
Every gust of dry hot wind scorching away at the body
Hand wiping face
Head clutched
Interrogating the blank white page
"Where have they gone,
Words of love sizzling with passion?"
(II)
Write down my name!
Pain
Hurt
Love
Hate
Ire
Fret
Write down my name!
Pleasure
Passion
Madness
Desire
Write down my name!
Life!!!
(III)
On an anniversary day
In the initial stage of our love
You came to visit
Bringing along furious kisses,
Intense words of love,
every relentless pinch upon the sore flesh to the point of tears
The two of us lay there clinging to one another
Listening to the depth of the night
Making amorous propositions
To the universe
You pulled out
As gift to me
A stack of white paper
Murmuring:
"Hopefully,
Life will fill them up with real dreams"
Several years later, also on an anniversary day
In the middle stage of our love
You came to visit
Bringing along grumpy words
The two of us
For unknown reasons
Would quarrel
Continuously
Hurling at one another
Rancorous words
Curses uttered too fast to be taken back
Full of spite
HAH!
You see,
The vicious circle,
Spinning around cute boys who only knew to love one another first
With irony, you asked me about the stack of paper
I snapped:
"Why write
The love story
Between two guys,
What the heck is good about it!"
Then
Time
Flew
On an anniversary day
On the last page of our love
You came
Without bringing anything
The night sang in a daze, its music concealed lyrics without notes
Parting on the threshold
I returned to you
The stack of paper of the other day
Now already filled with words
You held tight
To the binder
In your hand
As if clinging on to vain dreams of the receding past