Somewhere Quiet, I Still Love You
Dear Elio,
It's late. I'm sitting in my kitchen. New York is sleeping - but I'm not.
Some song on the radio reminded me of you - or maybe it wasn't the song at all. Maybe it was just time.
I don't really know why I'm writing this.
I probably won't even send it. Maybe I'm only writing to touch you one last time - without you knowing it.
I think about that summer often.
Not like a memory, but like something that's still happening, every time I close my eyes.
You, with bare shoulders in the sunlight.
Your eyes - always a little wiser than I was ready to face.
Your voice, when you said Oliver, with that soft Italian lilt that still sends a shiver through me.
I should've said more. Not just at the station.
In every moment before. I shouldn't have pretended it was a game. As if I could walk away from that and just be fine.
I tried to forget you, but you didn't feel like a memory - you felt like a place.
And you still do.
Yes, I got married. I have children. I love them.
But what we had didn't vanish, Elio. It just moved - somewhere quieter. Somewhere I go when the world is still, and no one is watching.
I wonder if you ever forgave me.
If you ever hated me.
If you knew I loved you - even though I never said it.
And I wonder if you know it now, reading this in your thoughts, as wind moves through the trees in some corner of Italy.
I wasn't brave enough.
And you were too beautiful to be real.
Maybe we were both: real - and impossible.
If there is a world where time doesn't matter, then I'm still there, with you, under the peach trees.
Oliver
