call me again → cmbyn ✔

24-cor cordium

oliver

the year is two thousand and nineteen, love marriage was legalised worldwide in two thousand and fifteen, now we don't have to walk down the streets and cower in fear of police officers 'taking us in' for our preferences.

it is no longer frowned upon to love who you please, hence i call it 'love marriage' there is no other title needed, no other specification. it is nothing but pure, effortless, sweet, love.

me and elio have been good, after that faithful night we spent together in paris we knew that there was no going back. it didn't start immediately, in fact it took another year but i was (surprisingly) offered a job at elios university. he had two years left, the two years was enough for us to know.

we got married by the time elio was twenty-two and had moved into a house in london by twenty-four. our first adopted child was twenty-eight.

and now at my grand old age of sixty, and him fifty-three, we have three children (two of whom have grown and moved away) one in italy, one in newyork. and the last who is seventeen and due to leave for harvard this spring.

our lives were good, better than good and they're nowhere near over just yet. unimaginable. i never understood why people would say 'true love conquers all'. i never understood why people cried when they saw their spouses at their weddings (until i cried at my own), i never understood how someone could be so selfishly in love with someone but so selflessly devoted to them.

our wedding was somewhat laughable, we invited only though who had no judgement, which ended up being mostly elio's side of the family, the italian are more 'lenient'. even my ex-fiancé flew from america to support me, i'd never be more grateful to a damaged person.

elio somehow convinced me to let him be the groom, so i was walked down the aisle by my older sister. he was very happy with himself, but i showed him who was incharge later that night.

i never understood how worth living life was, until i met you. until i met my elio. i'm almost glad it took us so long to figure out, we had to go through the pain to get to our happy ending, as soppy as it sounds.

the love we fell into together, was deeper than words could describe. however if i had to put our lives together, into words,

dear elio
i'd describe it like the back of our favourite post card which translated my yearning into two simple words. 'cor cordium' like a silly, corny poetry book we received from a man on a hot summers night in 83' the name of which stuck with us through the test of time 'cor cordium'. i'd imagine it like the look on your face when i asked you to marry me as we slept under the stars in portugal. 'cor cordium'. i'd imagine it as the tears that left your eyes during your final day with your father, because love can not always be kind. 'cor cordium'.

because if love is what truly makes our world go round, then surely the heart of hearts is the greatest power out there. so my darling, our lives together truly are ultra powerful.

because our lives together were and forever will be the hearts of all hearts interwoven and tied. again, till the end of our journey, to you mi 'cor cordium'

love, your lover