What I could have given you
is not what I won’t give you,
nor what I didn’t give you.
It’s something else.
It was there, in my hands,
invisible and alive,
like warm bread
never broken.
I could have given you
the freedom I once felt,
riding a black motorcycle
down a sunlit road in Sicily.
The wind slapping my face
made me feel invincible,
even if I wasn’t.
I could have taught you
that it’s okay to cry without shame,
that beauty isn’t found in perfect things
but in the scratches, the wrinkles,
the silences that make space.
I would have shown you
that love is not possession,
that leaving is sometimes necessary,
that questions matter
more than answers.
I could have told you
that I was often afraid.
But I kept walking anyway.
That I never stopped searching
for a truth that wouldn’t hurt anyone
and wouldn’t betray myself.
What I could have given you
is in the wind that stirs the leaves,
in the snow-covered mountain,
in the silence of the night.
What I could have given you
was the ability to feel all this
within yourselves.
What I could have given you
was recklessness —
the recklessness of facing the open sea.
What I could have given you
was courage —
the courage to believe in yourselves,
not to think you are better than others,
but that you are different, unique.
That is what I could have given you.
This is not a complaint.
It is simply the trace of a man
who loved in a way
you may not understand just yet.
But if one day you listen,
if you truly stop and listen,
maybe you’ll understand
that it was all… for you.