I wish we lived this close to each other. I’ll get to see you riding your bike off to work every morning. You can smell my cooking from upstairs as you play your guitar on the balcony, imagining what my food tastes like as you wait for your GoFood order to arrive. You could ring your bicycle bell every time you get home and see my lights on, just so I know you’ve come home safely. I’d whisper quietly, “Okaeri.”

We could watch the same sunsets, even if it meant we had to lean over the corner of the balcony and risk our lives. I’d leave notes in your mailbox. Some silly, some sad, some short and some a bit too long. You wouldn’t reply and I wouldn’t ask you why.

Is it OK to have a love like this? One that only lives in your head? Without a future. Except a fictitious one, that could end up immortal in a way if it someday is printed on paper? If I could make that happen, I wouldn’t mind dying a lonely death.

art by Pascal Campion “Longing”