While the rain is pounding on the wall...

while the rain is pounding on the wall

--- * ~ * ~ * ---

You've fallen asleep with your ​​head on my lap. In silence. Just like looking for a shelter that I cannot give.

It's not your fault for what happened tonight. In any case, if there was any kind of  fault, it was all mine ... and mine alone.

It’s still raining. There is no  possible truce  in this tired ,saddened fall.

My fingers get tangled again and again in the dark locks of your hair ,and everything tells me that this sigh of anguish still does not leave you.

You see: I did retrace my own steps. Something that I usually never do, that I  never have done before.

But is that... you know ... When I saw you there ... in the rain ... under that rain…

Now sleep, creature of my soul.Just as well, while you sleep,  I loose  my eyes in this dark corner that has always been mine, which  doesn’t lead anywhere, and that just brings me back ,through the tiny window, a little sight of moon and starry nights , that are always meaningless to me.

My fingers keep going back and forth, again and again, by the sad haven of your hair.

What happened ... already happened. I know it took you  flares of  shame, and fear (perhaps worse than death) to read once more the mockery and derision in the deep of my eyes.

But you begged me, and I, whom deny everything to everyone,  hardening even more at the sight of those   people whom live on their knees, this time…alas,I  couldn’t do anything but to do exactly what you asked.

It was so simple!

After to have loved me like I'd never have been loved before , your anguish pushed for a single ,unique  relief: You asked me the grace to mourn loudly, clutching yourself in my chest. The grace of screaming, of sobbing.The grace of   insult yourself, and the cursed  fate that decided all what we did in our lives.

Excuse me ... I cannot write or talk    as well as you would do. I cannot  thread more than a couple of words that sound so sharp as axes, that hurt even more when they attack those  old and almost forgotten  wounds.

You  asked for permission ,harrowing  meanwhile   screaming  my name in your pain, beating  my chest with your useless punching, biting the anger that shook you from within, where it lasted  (and lasts ,..and shall last ... poor bastard! forever) something that is stronger than hatred.

You screamed, howled, as a fierce beast , cursing  all that joined yourself in an invisible and powerful bond to me ... You were denying   everything ,renouncing all., even the fragile shield of your own honour.

You wanted to have  been never born; you wanted to do  not exist ... Or, in any case, you wanted me as the one whom should have never   born ...  never existed ...

(Oh,if your God  had heard you before! ...)

You wanted to cancel everything, tired of carrying your delirium, and withstand even mine, that I cannot  take with me in any way since.

Exhausted, finally,you fell  asleep  hugging my knees, crouched on the floor,like a  hungry little beast waiting for  a simple gesture of attention or affection that I cannot give you anymore..

Your moans while sleeping are  announcing  that the pain does not cease under the merciful shade of sleep, which is what most resembles death :and death was all that you asked to me as a favour, and I ... I could have given this to  you ... but I do  not wanted. Or must I say that I couldn’t?

-Open the gas taps, go, and leave me alone, if you do not want to die with me ... Do it ... Do it now, please, Jethro .....

- To die with you? .. But you're crazy? ... If we were to die together in a mutual embrace, the world would know the truth. And I cannot afford  the damn world taking acknowledge of anything... Do you know what would happen if you were found dead here, and in a way so infamous?

-Yes, I know ... But I do not care ... I swear I do not care, Gibbs! ... Enough! .... I cannot not  take another day!

I laughed:

-Yes you can ... You bet you can! ...  You actually were born for that,Di Nozzo... Don’t you realise that without one of the two of us, the other (I shall not say his life but his whole being, or, if you prefer, the mere fact of their existence) would no longer have any meaning?

(It was a lie. You know that it was a lie.! My turn shall be   to die first. And you must live.This is the  law. And the law must not be twisted for any reason.Yes,yes,I know:forgive me if I am being so cynic!).

- You son of a ...! ... Bastard! ..... Do you refuse if only   that grace, Gibbs? ...

-Rejoice that you granted permission to mourn loudly, so you can let off steam. I usually do not ever do it, Di Nozzo.: You know me very well. "

  Then  impotence   blew your chest into pieces; you whispered unintelligible words, phrases from your  older pain of childhood ,dragging in them all your oldest wounds: the abandonment of your father, the loneliness, the burden of honour and duty; in fact even that absurd oath made in your  childhood, in full unconsciousness ...

Sleep, please sleep ... and don’t wake up until it will be  well into the dawn. I could already take you to bed and sleep with you again ... But no ... Better not. If you woke up… ... I would not have the chance to say everything I want to say now. All I need to say ... All I need to throw up now, from the bottom of my guts, you know ...

I’m not  usually generous with words. You know me.,. And my way is brutal.

What? ... Are you trembling? ... Yes,you  tremble in horror as your dream contemplates who knows what dark secrets in the omnipresence of my body on your skin, in your blood ... in your bones ...

And you tremble in love when you recognise me  in the last moonlight that’s  biting the earth before the dawn.

- I cannot  stand anymore, Jethro! ... I swear I cannot stand anymore! ...

- What about it?

- Always with your damn indifference, Gibbs! Ah! If I die in my sleep out granted before a new day dawns, before waking up! ... Another day like this…cannot stand it  anymore! ... Another day, Gibbs damn! ... Another day! ....

But you grappled  my chest for to do not releasing it. You wanted to bury yourself inside it, to dissolve yourself, to disappear in my flesh,under my skin; you wanted to scatter yourself in my blood ,  sick,jabbing yourself  to my bones.

Tony,my little dawn!…. Tony, furtive kiss of sunbeam in my eternal night!

. You drown. Pain strangles you, even harder than my fingers could do.My fingers,that are  now traveling on your neck, on the delicacy of silk that is offered to my mouth like a balm ... when I feel  the pain of my thirstiness  ... when I am very thirsty ... that dim refuge stands yet strong and hard to the fury of my kisses ...

I'm dying to kiss you again .... and again .... and again .... But I don’t. My mouth has the strange power to upset both your sleep and your wakefulness, which is why you bite it always to make it bleed, while I do the same with yours.

The empty wall, wet with rain, fills the window that leads to  anywhere. -No more light than lightning, from time to time, stabbing the nocturnal  sky, so leaden; no more noise or music that your breathing, at times quiet, at times agitated, and the  distant beat of this heavy rain ….of this rain that never stops!.

On a night like this the woman whom gave me birth(to her misfortune,and even more for mine) committed suicide . A woman I can never return to call with the name of  "mother".

It was right before my eyes, eyes of twelve   years that already ignored the infantile playground, the tenderness and the rest, and stood, cold, watching her foreign body hanging from the rafters in a room full of wet  and winter.

But, as it has always happened in this unexplained chaos of my life,  I grew up and fought .. And I found that it was   too late. However .... when I opened the little window a little, the only thing I had .there was an almost insignificant  appointment to see something else other than the death .... I still had only one  thing ... only one! ... a ray of sunshine ... a single ray of sunshine ... but it  also was caught artfully, in a   night like this one..

The invisible threads that hold me always  served and still serve to resist, to hold, for the time is passing by, while I try to make it  forget about me ...  to forget about me ....But these threads are useless for  to push aside my conviction.

And who but you, would be my last ray of sunshine?

You came in through this small window, through this single and impoverished small window , and I( shivering in the cold of my life) was suddenly  under a dim little light that shone with a presumption infatuated with pride and arrogance.

What nonsense!

What kind of pride? ... What kind of arrogance? ...

The blatant little ray of sunshine curled at my feet, begging, pleading to let him warm them in winter nights .... and ignoring that  really it was me the one who begged, without saying so, for that sweet warmth you usually give me, sometimes , after our shared fury, when in your mouth and on your fingers is being born the need to hide yourself in me, to bury yourself in my chest.

How do you like my chest!!!! ... How! For you, I know it's an image of silence, a strange paradise, a nirvana where you felt yourself dissolved in the ineffable benevolence of nowhere. That's why you always sleep well, when you are always in me, with  me,beneath me,upon me…throbbing like this… ....

When I know that you're finally asleep, then ... then I hug you.,I embrace you... Before ... I don’t dare before. Before I can’t!. And then I kiss you, but not touching my lips with yours; I kiss you without touching even an inch of the  porcelain skin of  your forehead, or the glorious nest of your throat ... I do not know if I shall dare to tell you today all what I should….

Ah,how you are now hugging my knees!

Come on.. Lie asleep on this chest of mine , before it bursts, before it is shattered by having to remain silent ,so I can close my lips  forever.

So ... well ... my little ray of sunshine ... my Tony ...... How would I  wish to have you again in my bed,just now!

But no. Better not.

Better I still enjoy the sweet repose of your exhausted body.

The world thinks you're some kind of charming prince, while I am the plebeian warrior ,the self made one, that has grown thanks to  the  force and fury of his own blows, of the blood spilled unceremoniously in his  absurd revenges… ... The world thinks we fight   to assert the supremacy of our own forces, the power of these two infamous murderer ,killing machines that are our bodies ... Let the world I still believe that.

You and I know very well that we are just two unfortunate, two unhappy guys  caught in the middle of an endless winter cold,attempting in vain  to give each other some warm.Two poor guys attempting desperately to drink everything of themselves, to rush at each other, consumed by this unquenchable thirstiness. This greed is not guilty ,nor susceptible of to have any end.

But now I rejoice in sleeper holding my travelling hand in your back ,for to go slowly with my fingers in your neck ,hiding them  under the silky dark mantle of your scented hair ....

My tenderness ... My  Tony…If you knew! ...

If you knew that if I would  loose you ... I ... I ... yes ... Sure! ... I ...I would  kill myself.

If you knew, ... Tony!

But it’s  better if you don’t know. Therefore my silence, my indifference; this coldness of mine that destroys you by inside when you assume that my chest(this poor old  chest  you love so much!) is just only a wasteland of rocks and sand, dry and barren, that returns another chapter over our long history of frustration, anxiety, loneliness ...

You dream. You perspire. You fret. The drops of your sweat bathe my skin ... Do you dream, my soul?Do you dream? ... What do you dream about? ... Are you dreaming that you love me? ... or maybe you dream instead that you never loved me,that  you're free of this burden, of this infamous brand that hurts your pride naturally ... Tell me what you dream ... Say it with  those groans of yours  that turn on every drop of my  blood ...

I cannot resist anymore!. I'll kiss you. I'll let my mouth dying in your hair, on your neck,searching for the  hidden sweetness in your throat ... You,Tony,are my little unique sunbeam born with the  dawn, but born to die out completely in the brutal blindness that lasts in each of my nights ....

Your skin tastes  me to glory. Wet, warm, as a pitcher full of fresh water  for this forbidden  thirst that  has always lived with me, burning my tongue until the balm of your mouth  refreshes it .... if only for a short time, you know, becauseus… you and I…. Ah,we are like the sea: the more we drink from our mouths, our skin, our bodies ... thirstier we are! ... more and more thirsty ... and it becomes unbearable…

I kiss you, and you don’t wake up, because my kisses are living  in your dreams.

I could take you back to my bed,and love you again until both,you and I,end up bleeding  ... But it is better to lie down here,to  rest on this  poor forgotten ground,in this even more forgotten basement, so humble, covering us only with  this worn carpet without any colour, and this old pair of cushions, while watching the little window that leads us anywhere.

The rain is easing. Soon it will lean out the    feeble light of a wounded moon, split in two by the shadow of this wet and moldy wall .

My hands roam your back from your neck to your buttocks  ... and they still dare to go lower ... and more lower  ... to finally arrive at your delicious nest of tender flesh,still prepared for make my anxiety find some rest.

You close your embrace more against me. You think you’re finding a refuge in this chest of mine,that hurts  so much ... so much!…not knowing that you,yourself, are my refuge, the secret hideout for  all my silent sadness.

The sound of the rain is becoming almost  inaudible. The storm has ceased. My hand travels by your thighs. My mouth is hidden in your hair. I close my eyes ...

My heart breaks at once to feel you have awakened.

- Boss? .... What ... what time is it? .... What? -

-Nothing. Sleep, Tony. No dawns. Sleep.

- Do you? ... Aaahmm ... You're not sleeping, Boss? ...

- Stop it, Anthony! ... let me sleep, go you to sleep and  have a good time!

You smile,and  stir in a cuddly gesture while you attempt to travel with your mouth over my body again.

-No. Not now. Stop that now, and go to sleep.

And you obey ... but protest. Divinely.

-Ahmmm ... at least we could have gone to bed ... Ahmmm ... to be more comfortable ... Do not you think? ...

- Wanna go to bed?

I look at you, while you stretch. How I love to see you so, in your childish ,delicious drowsiness !

-The main bedroom window   at least has another view ... it overlooks the courtyard ...

-Oh, yes. A patio where there is nothing.

I light a cigarette to hide my eyes behind the smoke.

-There's nothing because  you   wanted it that way, Boss. I offered  you ... ahhmmm! ... to bring some roses ... remember?

- Roses??! ...? Here??! ..... Why?! .... To see  how they would die day after day, like everything that crosses the threshold of my door? ...

- Jethro! ... Already starting ? ..

-Oh .... Now go to sleep for once, Di Nozzo!

Silence. You close your eyes, while I finish my cigarette to extinguish( as always) the butt against my palm.

In the distance it’s heard the crowing of a rooster. It's after four o'clock.

The rain keeps giving, the last drops  hit against the dirty wall, as if to wake it from its sad slumber..

. Alas ... How similar to my soul is  that sad, ruinous, lonely wall that faces anywhere!

And you fall  asleep again,once more, with your  head buried completely in my chest .. Your mouth is  spilling waves of hot breath on my tired skin ; your halite caresses me as always.

I light another cigarette, waiting for the moon to lean out, for to be cleft in two by the high grey wall of this structure.

The moon,  mother of these suburban slums, sister of silence, tireless companion of the endless night:so  endless as it shall always be my life.

The moon rotates  …the wounded, broken moon….

(I need a drink. For something I have such long arms: I stretch them just a little, and I reach  to the table where there is  my bottle of bourbon. Yeah .. I need a drink. And another. And another. That's better, to further stoke the fire that consumes my throat.)

Anyway ... You shall  never know, Tony. Never.

You'll never know for sure what you have been, what you are and what you will be for me.

You never know, until I've definitely gone, and, one day, by chance, perhaps you will discover this letter, the letter  I'll write to you now, immediately, before I have to get drunk to forget everything again before the day is born , before, like every morning, you have to leave me ... so that the both of us can wear our daily costume and masks.

Because you’re  who leave me, you know? ... and not I to you.

I ... I am always with you. I am your perpetual anxiety, your fear, your secret pain. All that you are able to keep only  in the most hidden cache of your soul.

And I still do not know if the day you read this, you'll believe it.

And, in truth, I do not care. I do not mind at all.

I know it's true. And that's enough.

The wounded moon  kisses your skin for me.

Ah .... I forgot. (See what alcohol does? ......)

What I wanted to say is that, from the bottom of this filthy pit of misery that is my soul, I ... I ... I love you. With despair. With madness. More, much more than you could ever imagine ... and more, much more than what you've come to love me.

If that …what they call "love" is this strange thirst that consumes me, that drives me insane to see you, to have you ... and that makes me feel that void,that emptiness,like never before  .... especially when you're not with me.

And that is why I want a good finish once and for all with this whole useless ordeal useless.

I cannot let  you die, Tony, as your bushes had died as they crossed the threshold of my door.

With this kind of slow death I’m experiencing now myself...

With this infinite  thirst.

Now ...

Sleep, Tony ... Rest ...

Has not yet begun to appear the  light of dawn.

Farewell…

  

Yours ,forever,

Jethro Leroy Gibbs.