She was beginning her annual  journey; full of hope and excitement, back to what had become her saviour, her second home.
Years she'd spent within Italy's familiar arms, flooding her senses with summers past.

Could it really have been over a year since she last bathed in its beauty?
An entire year since her heart had been snatched away, and hidden behind her walls?

How that time had been good to her, and how strong she had grown.

Someone once told her that self knowledge was only ever accompanied by heartache and pain.
How wrong they had been.
Self knowledge had saved her life.
Self love had brought her back from loneliness.
How can that have been wrong?

Now she'd returned to the welcoming warm breeze, and the streets laced with a beauty that could release the most shackled of hearts.

A country where lovers are found wrapped tightly around one another.
Bound together with love.
Draped over statues from ancient Gods; their limbs intertwined revealing no beginning and no end. Just one heart made whole from two separate souls.

A country where street buses and cars, choreograph their way through the melody that the sunshine orchestrates.

A humidity that brings with it a yearning she hasn't felt in a million kisses. Her Senses re-awakened, a longing to be touched.
Finally freed from her self made cage.

She finds interest and delight in every withered portrait, and in the faces of every chess game, within the laziness its players boastfully adopt.

She soaks up the sticky sweet aroma like a honey bee to the morning dew.
And she is at home.

As night falls, the crickets gently rock her to sleep as she drifts away, into tomorrow's dreams of the awaiting breath taking sights and cuisines.

She falls deep into her bed.
Italy has her in its trusting arms.

She is at peace once again.