The Secret, Volume 3

Those moments are slipping and sliding in my mind, like a muddy red dirt slope in rural Georgia where I grew up after a rain fall… pine needles all around weren’t enough to stop the slippery landscape erosion.

But as I slide down, down, down, in a drizzle of rain falling down from the dark sky, I catch glimmers of those moments in a flash, as if the above thunderstorms were striking me with micro lightening.

I saw his eyes that first time he kissed me, boldened by the magical performance we shared, the drugs and the drinks. He planted a kiss on my mouth as I stood still, hoping he would leave so that I would’t have to deal with him. The last thing I needed was a complicated man with a complicated situation.

Then in a flash I remembered that night in Times Square where we both had Ubers and before getting in, he turned back and said, I forgot something. He walked up to me and kissed me fully. Again I didn’t know how to behave and I stood there without motion.

By that time we were talking nearly every other day. I decided it would be sensible for me to invite men to his shows, to keep my distance. And I did. A 26 year old Egyptian, a 33 year old Honduran. A 35 year old Emirate. Surely, their company would signal my inability to engage with him. Yet he somewhow seemed to be the one I started turning towards the most when I wanted to talk about things. To share things. To get advice or an opinion on nearly any topic.

Another lightening bolt hit me - this time it was on the beach in Tulum outside of the Dixon concert. We danced together as the waves crashed and the music reverberated around us. I saw in that moment in his eyes the love he had for me. I turned away each moment during our dancing when it seemed we’d get too close. Later that night, he came into bed next to me, sharing a single bed. I turned towards him, and for the first time, kissed him fully. I smelled him, I pulled my arms around him, and breathed him in.

We kissed again the next night, somehow finding ourselves locked into each other, sharing stories, half-way sleeping, resting against each other in a way that felt the safest I’d ever felt before.

I left after the second day, headed to work, a bit confused in my brain but understanding there was a growing “something” happening between us.

And then his show. I slept so hard I missed it. But then when I woke up, I went to him. We kissed in the bathroom. I wanted him, yet I knew it would ultimately spell disaster.

The flashes continued. His eyes shining in Costa Rica, holding me tightly in a hammock. His smile as he sat next to me at a Paris cafe. His care for me after I fell to make sure I was OK. He listened to my lucid dreams. He stroked my arm.

And that last night, when we both knew it was a goodbye… he grabbed my lips with his, and just held onto them. His subconscious spoke to my subconscious. It said, “it’s ok.” It said other things that spoke of grief and love and sadness. It said goodbye.

He then left me in the middle of tripping, not knowing what was real and what was fake. In end, it was a metaphor for what we had. It was a trip, an altered state of reality. I didn’t quite know what was real and what wasn’t, magnified by his ability to walk away so quickly when I demanded him to do so. I thought he might actually choose me instead of the other route.