Watch me.
I'm here, look at me.
You roll your eyes, you see me. Pretend to meet my gaze for the first time. Look, I've been with you forever. It's useless for you to say no.
I was the one walking towards you before I was even born.
I was the idiot who fell in love, who stood still in the gall wisteria of your trap.
You were the first bread. And of course you know. Between your breasts you let plum juice and wine flow, curse the scent of your flesh, the poison of your poison.
Yes, okay, now smile, pretend nothing happened. You move. Hill of shoulders and sea of thighs.
You change, you know you don't enchant me and you change. You're not happy, you don't force me enough, so you browse the repertoire.
It's useless for me to try, I don't believe in your childlike looks, in the hooks of your memories, in the crib figurines of your long hands, in that music of your voice that torments me and that returns at night to finish the work. I don't believe your steps, which can only be you. I don't want your hips, I don't want your hips anymore: they offend me with continuous promises. The same you do to everyone, too many. The same ones that everyone does to you, too many.
I'm leaving.
You got it right, yes, I'm leaving tomorrow.
Your blasphemous, deadly, poor love has degraded the ways of every possibility for me. He killed children, he dirtied the church of what we could become.
You haven't taught me anything.
Laugh.
Yes ma'am, you're only capable of copying from your past, trimming rouged copies of what's already been. Mummy. Fetish. Withered wound. Lie. (So) spell. Portrait.
You lift your hair then let it fall, how beautiful it is. How heavy is your night. What sighs and tears, what fierce joy. Hours and hours waiting for you.
I'm leaving anyway.
You raise a hand, let it descend in rivulet music and then you make it say: “Go away”!
I'm sorry, I did not want to. Without you I can't speak, I get confused, feelings get mixed up, good and evil separate in a certain boredom, life crouches in a warm chimney of hours.
Without you I don't know how to love anymore.
You won. You came back strong and you start dancing, you slam castanets and mandolins against the tears on my face, you insult me. You tell me I'm nothing, a shy cockroach who can't even run. You tell me I'm such a small part of you, a mole, a flower of pus.
I can't do anything but go.
I pack.
I don't take everything away, I do it on purpose.
You know that sooner or later I'll be back.
At your place.
Hello, Naples.
Patrizia Rinaldi lives and works in Naples. She has a degree in Philosophy and specializes in theater writing. Since 2010 she has been participating in literary projects at the Juvenile Penal Institute of Nisida. In 2016 you won the Andersen Award for Best Writer. In 2006 you won the Pippi Prize, unpublished section. Among her publications we mention 2X1 = 2, illustrated by Otto Gabos, (Istos 2018– Revolutions Series); The Company of the Suns, illustrated by Marco Paci, winner of the Andersen Award for Best Comics 2017 (Sinnos 2017); Far Town Garden, winner of the Laura Orvieto Prize 2017 (Lapis 2015); Frederick the mad, finalist for the Andersen Prize 2015 (Sinnos 2014), Sentimental rock, translated into Serbia (EL 2011); Piano, translated into Hungary and finalist of the Elsa Morante Prize (Sinnos 2009). For E/O Editions he has published Three, imperfect number (translated in the United States–Ed.Europe and in Germany–Ed.Ullstein), White, Hot Red, But already before June (Alghero Award 2015), The Male Daughter.
