When

When you lean over me like a willow, and your hair flows in a smooth curtain, covering me like a canopy from the world — there is only you and I. When I see you this close, emotions overflow the brim, drip in small streams down my cheeks, spill gold into the hungry world, then swiftly evaporate, dissolving like motes of dust in the vast ocean of the past. And within, a warm, cozy heat remains — whose power is so boundless it could carry me through the cold of the abyss, through the pricks of thorns, through the evaporation of darkness. And this heat spreads through vessels and capillaries, echoing the heart, which only comes so alive when it senses a kindred heart beating in your chest.

When you sleep, and the breath in your chest is as tranquil as an April morning, my soul strains toward you — to preserve your peace and keep watch over it while your eyelids are closed. And how it longs to decipher the secret signs of your dreams, to wander with you among the stars you see there, beyond the edge of reality.

When you laugh, and your lips — expressive and mobile, like the flight of two birds — offer me the most touching smile in the world, I am confirmed in my belief that you are a creation of Heaven. This sweetly captivates and strips away every desire but one: to serve you as an apostle serves the Lord. And to sing, sing, sing your praise!

When I scroll through the sheaf of messages you have sent me all this time, I am filled with gratitude to Providence, Nature, and Fate for rewarding me with your attention. Each of your messages is to me like a soldier's letter-triangle; each filled with intimate feeling, genuine faith in me, and hope that my sometimes shortsighted attention will find it all between the lines.

When I write these lines, my thoughts soar far above my head, somewhere near yours. Among them, the strongest is the one that cries: When, when, when will we meet again?

A note on "soldier's letter-triangle": This refers specifically to the folded triangular letters Soviet soldiers sent home during WWII — paper folded into a triangle with no envelope, because envelopes were scarce. In Russian cultural memory it is an icon of tenderness, longing, and separation under impossible circumstances. Translating it as simply "letter" loses everything.