— Charles Bukowski, from the poem “Bluebird”, The Last Night of the Earth Poems (1992); the opening lines, run together as prose
About this quote
हिन्दी में
मेरे सीने में एक नीला पंछी है जो बाहर निकलना चाहता है, पर मैं उसके लिए बहुत सख़्त हूँ; मैं कहता हूँ, वहीं भीतर पड़ा रह, मैं किसी को तुझे देखने नहीं दूँगा।
What it means
The line does not say the speaker lacks tenderness. It says the tenderness is alive, awake and pressing to get out, and that he is the one holding the door shut. The reason he gives is not that feeling is dangerous or useless — it is that somebody might see: I’m not going to let anybody see you. The whole cost is being paid for an audience.
What makes it worth keeping is the arithmetic of I’m too tough for him. Toughness is described not as strength but as the larger of two animals sharing one chest, winning a fight it picked. The popular use treats the line as proof of a hidden soft side, which is flattering to everyone who quotes it; the line is harsher, because the speaker is still talking to the bird, and talking to it gently, while keeping it caged.
What it teaches you
Notice which feelings you suppress only when there is a witness — the test is whether the thing you call being tough survives an hour alone in a room. The speaker negotiates out loud with what he is hiding, and that is why the concealment holds: it is maintained daily, not decided once.
अर्थ और सीख
यह पंक्ति कहती है कि कोमलता ख़त्म नहीं हुई — वह भीतर ज़िंदा है और बाहर आना चाहती है, पर बोलने वाला ख़ुद उसे बंद किए हुए है, और वजह सिर्फ़ इतनी है कि कोई देख न ले। यानी यहाँ कठोरता कोई ताक़त नहीं, दूसरों की नज़र से बचाने वाला पहरा है। सीख यह कि जिन भावनाओं को हम केवल लोगों के सामने छिपाते हैं, उन्हें कमज़ोरी मान लेना ही असली भूल है।
Where it comes from
A reader sent this in through our submission form, credited to Bukowski’s “Bluebird”. We have matched it to the opening lines of that poem, collected in The Last Night of the Earth Poems (Black Sparrow Press, 1992). The poem is set in short, broken lines; the version that circulates, and the one quoted here, runs them together as a sentence. The poem is still in copyright, so we quote only these lines.
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