But if I had to walk away again, would you ever forgive me? If I had to leave before the moon, even if it's sometime soon would you smile the very next day like I had never gone away? As I sit here on the clay-tiled roof of our home, I see the moon shine over Rome. I can hardly hear a bird; let alone a spoken word. I can't even see a cat stalk, let alone encounter someone on my walk.
I saw the many homes and shops of Rome, all seemingly bowing to the growing stature of the Vatican, which was partly covered by scaffolding and the like, for the Pope commissioned artists and architects to work on a new addition to the Vatican, the Sistine Chapel. Whatever for a Church of love in life needs such lavish constructions for is beyond me, and seeing all the construction and hearing all the eager comments of the citizens became stones in my heart. But these daily annoyances are pebbles that could fit in a child's hand compared to the boulder which I've been trying to ignore.
My dear Emilia, she's so precious to me, such that she is a necessity. I've never held such a love for someone I didn't want to bed. It is inexplicable, I see something in her that just seems to make me want to protect her, cherish her and guide her in life. Ever since I met her 7 years ago in the snowy Alps. She was so weak and hungry but still there was something in her eyes, something beautiful. It's not a word I like to use, but I do not think that anything else is as apt as that word for what I see when I look into her eyes. I can talk about how she holds ten-thousand stars in each one, or about how her gaze gives some of its own magnificent to light to whatever she casts it upon--but it does not suffice. I just had to protect that.
I had left her once before, 3 years ago. It was because I was scared that I took up too much of her life, that she wasn't living her own life because of me, and every day after that I used to look at the night sky and think about all the stars I'd see in her eyes, even now I think that the only reason there are this many stars at night is because they leave her sleeping eyes and settle for sky's infinity until morning arrives once more.
When I found her again a year ago she was selling pendants she made herself by the fountain in that yellow ocher dress I had bought her in Florence. The pendants would only be worn by peasants but they had a certain charm to them, something I feel that no one else would appreciate. When she had seen me standing so close to her she nearly fell into shock and started crying. She cried a million tears, and pounded my chest a million times. All I could do was hold her while she told me about those two long years we spent apart. She asked me to not leave her again.
What a promise I have to break, and you shan't know why, for if you did I know you'd follow me and that's something I know I cannot want. I'm a man of foolish tendencies and even more foolish habits, and it's because of those habits that I must bid her a farewell, at least for now.
