As time goes by

Of all the people in New York, he walks into me, Henry. He comes towards me like a whirlwind on 5th, dressed in black and purple. Trying to avoid him would be like climbing a waterfall. "I've been away" I tell him, "I know" he says as if it didn't matter and kisses me on the back of my hand. How did he know? I never ask and our conversation changes paths the way they always do.

I saw him everywhere in Venice, turning corners, walking away from me. When I came back I wanted to be where he wasn't and suddenly he stands there just inches away and we're breathing the same air. It smells of spring and Acqua di Giò, he puts his hand softly on my shoulder and whirls away from me again, as if he was never really there.

I walk on in a daze and it's not because of the opium. When I turn around a few blocks later I imagine that I spot him, turning a corner, walking away from me. The air smells like after a thunder storm.

Letters for Chloe

New York 22/4/13

My darling Chloe,

You've been so quiet since I came back, I know you're there only by the little sounds you make when you leave in the morning. I want to talk to you but I'm afraid of what you might say. What would I tell someone that silently abandoned me and then came back? There's no answer, just a swift shadow outside my bedroom door and the echoing silence that follows.

I need you, my darling Chloe, like I need to breathe. You're the purifying intoxication that makes me forget, the only drug I need to escape from this madness and the solitude, you fill the void in my heart when we're together. Do you remember the cherry blossoms and the red wine in secret? I know you do and I miss the softness of your warm little hands underneath my clothes and the stars in the garden late at night when everyone else was asleep.

I know that you come here every now and then, my darling Chloe. We've talked about this blog and you have even asked me to turn it into a book some day. Maybe I will, just because you will be the heroine that men will fall helplessly in love with, if they hadn't already. And you know that I've only said good things about you, because good is what you are. To me and for me always.

I miss the softness of your hands every hour of every day, so I want to open my bedroom door and talk to you, my darling Chloe. One morning I will, but first I need to wake up to the sound of the traffic on the avenue and not your high heeled footsteps on the black marble floor in the hallway (the truth is they scare me). I need to take some time to breathe and smell your perfume in the airwaves, and I need to know you're still there like I'm here for you.

You and me always
Avy

Frozen

For a while it felt as if this winter would never end. I left a New York dressed in gray, while I was gone the sorrow washed away and if I listen closely I can hear the sound of a thousand birds.

Not everything has changed. Henry's daffodils stand withered in my bedroom window and mother's flowers are still made of plastic. I don't know if they missed me or if they ever noticed I was gone.

Chloe did. I followed her shadow down the hallway as she disappeared into her room and closed the door behind her. After the dark and my nightmares I found a note in my clothes, "you left without saying goodbye". She knows it's because I hate goodbyes, they always remind me of a wistful winter that seemed to never end.

Under the sand

I was always afraid of the dark but for different reasons. It changed gradually after my father died, the black water in the canals here reminds me of how alluring I thought it was in the beginning. Spending lazy summer days on the beaches in Los Angeles and staying behind on my own after sunset. How the dark would make it impossible to see where the sky ended and the ocean began, behind me the lights from the city and the noise.

For a while it was the only thing that felt real, I used to imagine going into the water but something always pulled me back. Fear maybe, my restlessness made me want to escape somewhere and in the darkness by the ocean I felt as if I really had the chance. Everything could be over so easily and no one would ever know.

When you were young

Fashion seems to have a different taste here, but maybe it's just the local red wine we use to wash down our lunches. We hear the waiters talking about us and our branded shopping bags, when they come by to take our orders Stephanie answers them in her perfect Italian. It sounds like music.

We return to the hotel and the brown eyed concierge flirts with us. His name is Fabrizio, Stephanie tells him to come by our room later, just in case he wants to see us try on our new summer dresses. Tu ce l'hai la chiave, no?

When Carl would visit us in the summer house he would always sleep in the room next to mine. I would lie awake at nights trying to hear his breaths through the silence, writing invisible messages on the walls with my naked fingertips: please come in and save me from the darkness.

Venezia

I'm awakened by the emerald shimmering from the lagoon in the early morning, at night the color of the water turns to deepest black and the tourists disappear into the silence. Stephanie leads me through the claustrophobic alleys, over fairy tale bridges and into the canals. Every fifty yards a light, the strings of laundry hanging like barbed wire across the midnight skies.

We stop at a corner and listen to the water and the gondolas. Stephanie holds my hand, her Armangac breath an inch away and a distant glow in her eyes. "How's Henry" she asks but doesn't wait for an answer. We start running, faster and faster, the sound of our Gucci heels against the pavement like a steady heartbeat. Another morning is just hours away and the black will turn to daylight.