I remember it as vividly
as if it was yesterday.
His body lying next to mine
in complete silence.
Reaching out to one another
in a simple gesture.
It was another Italian summer on the Riviera,
fulfilled with red wine, pineapple juice,
lectures on history and music.
It was another Italian dream
slowly turning into the nightmare.
A tiny bookstore at the corner of the street.
Closed in the morning,
usually full of people later in the evening.
They had been laughing, drinking,
probably discussing another collection of poetry
that had just come out.
I met him there, standing in the dark
with a glass of port in his hand.
Later that night, he loved me on the beach.
He loved me at his mother's old house
when we came to pay her a visit.
He loved me at his ex-lover's party
a weekend after we'd met.
He loved me everywhere.
He was the someone given to me to enlighten
those jours caniculaires.
I was a woman; he was a man.
A perfect match, so to say.
A perfect one, but not the only one
out of variety.
I loved loving him as much as I loved
the way my body felt his
while he was on top of me.
I loved him almost as much
as I loved myself.
What was it, the affair that had started
in the tiny city, at the tiny bookstore
somewhere on the Italian Riviera?..

All our lives, we lose.

It is as natural, as living itself.


Losing a ticket you bought

to see a ballet performance

is saving you from its ugliness,

disappointment, squalor.

Losing a chance to see your beloved

is keeping you both from a fracas.


Every loss comes by with an undertone.

Existence itself is losing,

hour by hour, minute by minute

you lose your time, your life,

your organism.

What is it that's keeping us all here?

Isn't it simply a fear?


We cannot believe this world will stand,

years after years, centuries after centuries, without us.

This fear is what makes us human,

and losing is what makes us alive.

I look at you.

No one is more beautiful just because no one can replicate you,

copy you, be the way you are.

Your golden hair, your little pinky mouth may seem something of commonness, but your eyes contain such an inner sense no one is able to possess.

I love you. I've never met you, seen you or touched you, but I feel every inch of you

as if you were close to me, as if you were here.

The way you sing,

the way you move & smile makes me tremble every time I think of you.

You're the sunshine; the one I can never reach, the one I can never resist to admire.

Were you right next to me, maybe that inner beauty would have disappeared? Maybe you'd turn into an ordinary human being.

We'll never know.

I prefer you to stay this far from me, far enough to save that mystique of yours, that inner peculiarity & angelic essence.

You look at the star. It is smiling,

dancing in the sky. Romeo & Juliette,

Jack & Rose—looks like every story

repeats itself in some certain way.


The sky,

who's been chewing clouds

all day long, is now full

of these shining, gilded little creatures.


They'll show you the way,

they will guide you to your Juliette

waiting for you in her own Verona.


A shooting star is falling down,

breaking, screaming, striving—make a wish!

Juliette is far away, Rosaline is standing

right next to you, blushing in her pure glamor.


Her lips are two petals calling your name.

Romeo! Estimate her beauty,

since it is something you can reach

at this very moment.

To chose and be chosen,

These two never go together.

To love and be loved,

It's either fantastical or impossible.

We are victims of this nature balance

Watching from the above,

Making laugh of us.

Everything happens because of fate,

Or because of God,

We can never run our destinies.

A human heart is a sponge,

Absorbing tragedies and dramas.

A distant dream can make it alive again,

A single touch can make it tremble.

What if happiness is just a needle,

Pricking it every time we love?

Having no heart

Is either mythical or Utopian.

What are we, if not a blood clot,

A bunch of bones & meat?

Having a human heart

Is what makes us something else.

Human beings.

Years ago I heard a story

about a woman trying

to find herself, but

escaping herself instead.

It's been a long time since then,

and I still ask myself:

what does escape mean?


Changing your hairstyle, or

moving to another place

doesn't make you

a different person.

No one can escape

themselves, as far as

the ocean's blue,

and the Earth is round.


Years after years,

I'd come to realize,

I did succeed in escaping

My child self.

Peter Pan has flown away,

I am all grown up,

And I still ask myself:

What do I have left?