The Lover Who Was Nothing by Rumi A man desperately in love arrived at the house of his beloved and enthusiastically knocked on the door.
''Who's there?
'' asked the lady.
''It's me,
'' declared the man,
Full of hope.
''Go away.
There's no place for someone like you in this house,
'' she responded,
Her voice laced with sorrow.
''You're naive and not yet ready,
Just like an uncooked meal.
You declare yourself as me and still proclaim your undying love for me?
'' A lover who only sees himself is no lover at all,
But needs to roast in the fire of separation until he's properly cooked.
She refused to open the door,
And the distraught man eventually backed away from the house.
Soon after,
He left the town for an unknown destination in some faraway land.
Burning with the pain of separation,
After a year of traveling from place to place,
He gathered his courage and approached his beloved's house once again.
Apprehensively,
But politely,
He knocked on the door.
''Who's knocking at this hour?
'' asked the lady impatiently.
''No one.
The one on this side of the door is also you,
'' expressed the man humbly.
''Now that you've stopped seeing only yourself,
You've become me at last.
Two people could never exist in this house simultaneously,
But now you may enter.
'' She cautiously opened the door and let her lover inside.
''Now you're welcome in this house.
There's no difference between us anymore.
No longer are we the rose and the thorn.
We are one and the same.
I'm Carol,
And it is my pleasure reading Rumi.
