NOR I WOULD HAVE WANTED TO
I was crying, yet again. On a random toilette floor, yet again. You were there with me, yet again. Down, off the toilette seat, on the wet floor drying my wet cheeks, yet again. Only you, only you, could see me like that and only you, only you, I want to see me like that.
The tears are now dried, only because of your little hands, a bit puffy in the hot weather of the almost Amalfi coast (we thought it was the real deal, this little village and this sea-flavoured internship, but they wrote Amalfi coast on the website because that’s more attractive than “God-doesn’t-even-remember-they-made-this coast” and “the-sea-can-be-reached-only-by-consuming-completely-the-soles-of-your-shoes coast” – so now it’s our almost Amalfi coast, but it’s got a ring to it, doesn’t it?). We got up and we danced, just for a second, whispering in the dim light of that dark-painted toilette.
Then they hit play and the dance stopped – we went back to work. A box in your hands and two in mine because you dried all my tears that day (as you’ll dry all my future ones, too) and that’s already a burden enough. I see you smiling in the corner between my left eye and the lens of my sunglasses. You fit there perfectly. I couldn’t have done any of this without you. It’s a sudden realisation, but it’s true – I couldn’t have done it without you. Nor I would have wanted to.
The strength you have and the strength you give. We slept under the crucifix the nuns put above our bed (a blessing or a reminder, who knows?). We held hands, because the shift was exhausting and the fried treats they gave us afterwards weren’t as good as the stories they told us about them. But the words were sweet and the night was tender – I held your hand and I knew I didn’t want to let go. We talked and talked. About the shift, about our bosses and about how we could do their job better, we talked about school. I talked about you. In a sudden need to be honest I confessed – I love you. You, standing there, solid as a flower as it all goes downhill, a poppy in the wind, like the one perpetually stuck behind my ear – I love you. You saying yes when I wanted to say no, me saying yes because you did and you’re the friend I’ve always wanted to have and how could I say anything different than yes if that’s what you said? – I love you. Oh, I so fucking love you.
You push me, you fight me. I’ve never done half the things I’ve done since I’ve known you. I’ve never been one for change and chaos, but I’ve never been more glad about something than I am about this so erratic rhythm that we share. It’s the fact that we now have our own little language based on chaotic notes on a google doc. It’s the fact that we took together that train to the almost Amalfi coast and worked in the scorching sun for ten days and slept in the same sweaty bed and showered in the same shower with the same water stuck at the bottom till I managed to get the filter clean. It’s the fact we were both mad about the same things but we always found a way to help each other out. It’s the fact you sat on the toilette floor and dried my cheeks. It’s the fact that I would have done the same. It’s the fact that you were in the CCs of all my emails and I of yours. It’s the fact you gave me a dream.
Sometimes I think back to those songs they sang on the almost Amalfi coast. Just a random lyric from a random song and yet it struck a chord – it was about us, I knew it. Può crescere un fiore nel nostro giardino, they sang, drunk and drained by a day of work under an unforgiving sun blurred by an unforgiving heat. And we danced to their songs and a flower bloomed indeed, a garden flourished, and it’s so cheesy to write it down, and it’s even cheesier that I cannot help but doing it. It’s like that sun, it burns hot – a red burn all over my pale limbs, except for where you held me tight.
I think about the crucifix above our bed, about the nuns fretting about us not sleeping because of all the work we had to do. I think about us not sleeping to sneak in their chapel just because we could and just because the beer was a balm as it went down our tired throats. I think about the little saints hanging on their walls. I think about how you are the one hanging on mine. All smile and all curly messy blonde hair. I think about how this is a religion of its own. The fact that we shared a martyrdom that’s a promise of opportunities. I think about the fact that we chose to suffer. Just because we were together. I think about the fact that the opportunities were real, and not just a delusion to keep us going. I think about the fact that that crucifix was both a blessing and a reminder. I think about the fact that I love your curly messy blonde hair and the way they fit on my cheek when you hug me and everything suddenly feels fine.
Sometimes I think about Rome, too. How we went right before the almost Amalfi coast and how we wanted to go back, get off the train at the wrong station and sleep once again in the same bed, right next the Vatican (because nuns are the comma between that “I love you” and that “too” in this friendship of ours) and close enough to the Colosseum (our soles were already quite consumed, weren’t they?). I think about how we danced under the stars as Fontaines DC sang our day will come, can you feel it? won’t be long, can you feel it? And then I think about how our day did come because you forced my hand, pushed me where I’ve never been and I think I couldn’t have done it without you. Nor I would have wanted to.
Roberta Fragnelli, 22, somewhere near (not enough) Milan - Italy ✯ roberta.fragnelli.writing@gmail.com
“Studying in Milan to get a master in Translation Studies, a not very sociable girl but great at acting as an extrovert in the right crowds, loves to feel uncomfortable while consuming any type of media. Toxic trait – she needs everything to be somehow funny and somehow in brackets.”