Every now and then, a poem comes along that feels like it was written in a language your heart already understood. This one is exactly that—a quiet confession of the ways we love when we’re not sure the world is safe enough to love openly. And reading it through the Vietnamese translation by Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm adds a different kind of weight. Her rendering doesn’t dilute Rumi’s longing; it sharpens it. The phrasing feels more intimate, more exposed, almost like a truth whispered in the dark rather than something meant for daylight. It carries the tremor of someone choosing their words carefully—not to hide the feeling, but to keep it from breaking.
I recognize myself in these lines—not because they’re romantic, but because they’re honest in the way only the wounded can be honest. The choices Rumi names—silence, loneliness, distance, wind, dreams—aren’t just poetic gestures; they’re survival strategies we adopt long before we ever learn to name them. Before I step into the analysis, I want to be clear about the feeling underneath all of this: this is a poem about longing, but it’s also a poem about what fear teaches us to call love.
Rumi’s Poem (Full Examination)
“I choose to love you in silence…
Because in silence there is no rejection,”
Silence becomes a controlled environment. No exposure, no risk. It’s the heart refusing to let someone’s “no” dismantle what feels sacred. There’s tenderness here, but also deep self-protection.
“I choose to love you in loneliness…
Because in loneliness you do not belong to anyone but me,”
Loneliness becomes ownership. Not of the person, but of the fantasy. It’s that quiet admission that imagined intimacy feels safer than shared intimacy—because reality involves other people, other choices, other ways to be hurt.
“I choose to cherish you from afar…
Because distance will shield me from pain,”
Distance is anesthetic. Keep the feeling alive, but keep it far enough away that it can’t burn you. There’s longing here rooted in past wounds—love held at arm’s length because closeness has teeth.
“I choose to kiss you in the wind…
Because the wind is softer than my lips,”
The wind becomes a surrogate for touch—the gentler, safer stand-in. This speaks to someone who has learned that physical connection can wound as easily as it heals. Gentleness outsourced to nature because the body remembers hurt.
“I choose to hold you in my dreams…
Because in my dreams, you will be forever.”
Dreams are the only place where love doesn’t die, change, betray, or disappear. Permanence becomes a fantasy because impermanence has already carved its mark.
Personal Reflection:
Rumi’s poem reads like someone tracing the outline of their own heart without daring to fill it in. Every choice—silence, loneliness, distance, dreams—feels less like surrender and more like survival. Anyone who’s lived through love that left bruises knows this pattern: protect the feeling by protecting yourself. Sometimes the safest place to love someone is the one where you never have to test whether they love you back.
But there’s a heavier truth humming beneath these lines. Loving in silence isn’t just reverence—it’s fear wearing poetry as armor. We tell ourselves we’re choosing distance when what we’re really choosing is control.
Silence keeps us from being shattered. Loneliness gives us a version of them we never have to share. Dreams let us rewrite the ending.
The thing is, these choices don’t just shield us from pain—they shield us from possibility. And that’s the part Rumi doesn’t say but implies: sometimes unspoken love is a sanctuary, and sometimes it’s a cell. The heart learns to ration hope after it’s been broken enough times. We call it wisdom, but it’s also scar tissue deciding what stories we’re allowed to tell.
Still, there’s something profoundly human in this poem—this instinct to hold what feels sacred in the quiet. Not every love needs to be confessed to be real. Some loves are meant to teach us, soften us, remind us we’re still capable of feeling deeply even after the world has taken its swings.
Maybe the point isn’t to stay hidden. Maybe it’s to understand the terrain of our own tenderness before we risk crossing it with someone else. Silence can be a starting point, not a resignation. Distance can be a breath, not a retreat.
And dreams… well, sometimes dreams hold our truest selves until we’re ready to step into the light and admit what we want out loud.
Memoirs of Madness 