The Courtyard

I walked hand in hand with you, between walls that had watched the centuries pass and narrow streets the night dressed in mystery.

The ancient stone, lit with an almost unreal delicacy, seemed to hold secrets only lovers could discover.

You were from there, at home in that beauty, familiar with the corners where the city hid its magic.

I walked beside you, slowly entering your world, not knowing that, among those alleyways, I was also beginning to lose myself in you.

Sometimes we stopped. The night offered us its folds, a corner with no witnesses, a nook where history fell silent to make room for our kisses.

You, me, our kisses, the whole city, with its centuries of stone and memory, granted us the privilege of that one encounter.

I remember your scent.

How strange the body is, it keeps what reason cannot explain. Your scent stayed with me like a secret word, like an invisible trace I could still recognize in a crowd.

I liked it. I liked you.

And there was something beautiful in that simple certainty, in needing no promises, in discovering that desire can also begin with a shared laugh.

We drank wine. We laughed. We told each other about ourselves, our lives, what had made us who we were that night.

We listened to each other with curiosity, as though each story opened a door, as though behind each word there were another way to draw closer.

And perhaps that was why everything felt so light, so free of answers, so beautiful in its uncertainty.

Then we came to the courtyard.

There, where no one was watching us, we let our hands speak, our lips seek each other, skin discover skin.

We touched each other with the curiosity of someone exploring new territory, a mixture of tenderness and the vertigo of knowing oneself desired.

There were no grand declarations. Only the warmth of your body, your mouth close to mine, the wine still in our laughter and the night wrapping around us like an old accomplice.

We were two people who had just met and yet, at times, it seemed something in us had long been waiting for us.

what do you remember of that night? Perhaps other details, other words, an image that escapes me.

I remember your hand in mine, The intense way you looked at me, your mouth longing for mine. the secret streets, the wine, your laughter.

I remember your scent.

a special night that life left in our path for us to inhabit without asking it to last beyond that moment without the urgency of becoming a story to deserve a place in memory.

Sometimes a city is enough, a man, a few glasses of wine, a kiss in secret.

Sometimes one night is enough for a place to stop being geography and become a memory.

Since then, Those walls are not just ancient stone, golden light, the secret of their alleyways, Or the silence of that courtyard.

You and I, among the centuries, kissing in the dark.

And for a moment, one of those moments that life never repeats but cannot erase either, the world was exactly where we wanted to be.

Victoria Inaudi