7 June 2025, eve
Monument hill, looking east — towards the beginning.
I do imagine that he is gone forever, the ragazzo with the shining eyes.
He was so alive. His first love. Sei la donna perfetta per me. His dream. The dream that he clung to right until the very end. The dream. Thank you, ragazzo. It became my dream too — you made it my dream too. Because of you, I believed. The dream is dead. I understood long before you that it could never be, that it was impossible, utterly impossible; and yet, a part of me weeps for the death of the dream, for the death of you. Farewell, my love, addio — farewell. You lived so briefly, an incandescent brilliance whose flare changed me forever. My love, farewell and grazie infinite.
You are infinite. I love you.
You were so alive. So alive. Your aliveness filled and captured me, even in a video call. So alive. And so intent on capturing and keeping me. The intensity of your gaze, eyes shining; the intensity of your energy, your mind. You.
The ragazzo with the shining eyes who wanted to try living with me, who had to do it, and gave it everything he had.
The ragazzo with the shining eyes, tall and straight and beautiful, who walked towards me with his jerky gait in the piazza in front of the train station in Bergamo. But usually, it was on the video calls that I saw you. And the first night and the first weekend. And driving from the Bergamo train station towards V along that five-kilometre stretch. So excited to see me and be with me again, and so aroused.
The ragazzo with the shining eyes who during our forced ten-day separation while you waited for your (last!) stipendio told me on a late-night video call, out of the blue, that I would make an amazing mother.
The ragazzo with the shining eyes who cried with all of his being ‘Cento per cento!’
C’è l’abbiamo fatta, amore mio. Addio. Grazie.
A ragazzo with a dream of a life.
‘Volevo tornare alla mia moglie.’
‘Ti amo tornare a casa a qualcuna che ti ama è bellissimo’
Ero io.
Eri straordinario. Unico.
You changed me, and my life, forever.
My first true love. And I, yours.
You’re unbelievable. You’re not of this world. You couldn’t stay.
Farewell, my love. I’m sorry you had to die. You were amazing.
It was love at first sight, for him.
‘Spero! che diventa “ti amo”.’ It did, my love, it did.
His arm hooked forcefully around my head as I drove down the tornanti from V, to pull my head towards his so he could kiss me and kiss me and kiss me in joy.