Beside himself with happiness

Hong Kong is my second love – right after Budapest – I've never visited New York – that's sort of my platonic love, but Hong Kong – that's a place from which so much friendship, love, support, respect, and sometimes also pity and a desire to return friendship have always flowed to me.

At a time when email wasn't taken for granted, the internet was in its infancy, my long-standing friendship with Benjamin was born. Yes, I named one of the main characters of my book PNVNY after him.

Anyone who has ever written letters knows how long the wait is for a reply from distant lands. How many times in my childhood, eagerly returning from school, did I fly to the green mailbox labeled F44 to see if there was a letter in it from Benjamin.

Even today, and I'm 39, I dream of collecting a mailbox full of letters from Benjamin. In my dream, I open the mailbox and collect a large number of backdated letters – with a silent reproach – you haven't checked the mailbox in so long.

In my dream, the feeling of great joy returns to me – from the contents of the letters, from the packages, from the little gifts – from the single, dearest Benjamin to my heart.

*

And yet – at the time when I left René, I also left Benjamin – and many other people in my life. To cleanse the supposed stain on the character of my mistress, I have no choice but to cordially admit that for a long time, many years, I was breaking free from the destructive influences of the hidden symmetry of love in my family – and at one point it was necessary to put myself first before everything and everyone else.

Thus vanished forever some friends who had been important to me until then, and who never forgave me my spiritual quest.

To this day I regret that I did not go to the wedding of Anna, who was my dearest friend at the time.

Yes, that Anna.

*But I chose myself – and my happiness – and I am glad, perhaps after many years I can write this – that I discovered myself, recognized my weaknesses, my fears, and faced them with love. I managed to overcome influences more or less hidden and detach myself from the old.

* Many people think that changing my first and last name was an effort to be different. Perhaps they were right in a way, but giving up the name Aleš Fajx and adopting in its place, in the first stage, Antonia Deli, was about protection that I desperately needed – to come to terms with my own sexuality – and in the second stage, when I adopted my new birth name Antonín Deliš – to break free from the influence of the hidden symmetry of love in our family. Not for nothing, as I say, in the extended family, in my generation, there are many gays, thus ending our lineage and the heavy burden that would await our children.

Deliš. A great unknown to many. Why on earth Deliš? Well, I knew a chick. She really was a chick.

CAT'S EYES

An eye for an eye,
a cat's life:

Stitch by stitch,
writing for the birds.

Stitch by stitch,
all for nothing.

Stitch by stitch,
just for my beloved cat.

2.8.2020, 11:40, Železný Brod, railway station

I met Martina around the year 2000 at an acting course in Jaroměř, where she taught movement training. And I fell in love with her – much to the displeasure of others, because Martina was theirs too and I wanted to steal her from them. Martina was an established actress of the Prague City Theaters at the time. Because of Martina, I wanted to know French, but I never learned French. At least I wrote poetry in French.

IMPITOYABLE – ALLÉCHER MARTINA

Moisson
de vie
corsage
paralysie
– boitier de fards

embarrasé
pleure
supplice et frissons

Qu´est-ce que vous faites, Belle?

Martine – belle femme
Aleš – iris et merle
– éclat, mais c´est non pas le tien
– désavantage

Flétrissure de Aleš
Allécher Martina.

25.4.2000, 22:15, Turnov

Martina was the first and at the same time the last woman I ever loved. Her echo was then Lili. Martina married Petr and they have children together. Martina remains in my heart as a star sister.

BESIDE MYSELF WITH HAPPINESS

With you – so sudden and unexpected,
beside myself – so sudden and unexpected.

Now I am without you,
and with myself.

23.11.2000, 22:05, Prague, ABC – Red and Black