A Sad Love Story

(Chuyện tình buồn - Ngô Thụy Miên)

You are like a rosebud,

I pray you won’t turn cold.

You are like a dream-day,

the kind that makes me shy.

You’ll lull me into a thousand memories—

a day when drifting clouds pass by,

and love feels like a dream.

You are like a strong drop of wine,

guiding me into reverie.

You are like a strip of peach silk,

wrapping me in whispered words.

Days will pass and fade away,

and love will become an old tale…

Sad.

A love we thought long gone—

pale since some forgotten time—

suddenly you came into my heart

and wiped away a piece of life’s sorrow.

A precious love, so fragile—

adrift against life’s current,

a river stretching thousand miles… can it be joyful?

Oh, why do you toil on,

when no happy day lasts long?

I carry sorrow day by day,

quickly burying this thin, frail love.

So many words die unspoken—

what forest is without the rainy season?

What love will ever be like poetry?

We’ve never even met once,

yet love feels so near.

Please, just once—

let me whisper your name.

If days pass and fade away,

I’ll return you to those drifting clouds…

Sad.