The night comes back to me in flashes….

Downtown restaurant. Trendy music pounding on overhead speakers.

Pomegranate martini, tart and strong, filled to almost overflowing. My eyes water on the first drink and a splash spills across my hand and on the table.  My fingers are sticky.

A shared plate, salad with field greens, chicken, cashews, berries, manchego cheese – layers of subtle flavor pleasing my mouth.

My dear one across from me, tightly sprung curls surrounding an angel face.

My questions echoed in her kind eyes.

She is tentative, guiding me towards truth. Saying what she sees with no pressure or expectation.

She knows this space.  She knows me.  Better than anyone.

Her words ‘it is like the ocean’ unleash a longing in me I do not think I will ever be able to answer.

~~~

Later – the parking lot of a gay bar, found via google:

I’m too afraid to go in.

Women enter and leave, I think outloud  ‘they don’t look like me.  I don’t look like them’.

My head is down.  I feel alone and uncertain.

I catalog my heels and makeup and all this fucking effort against them, the way they seemed to exist outside of a world that has always demanded my assimilation.

The way they move suggests to me that they know who they are.

I wish badly that I did.

Shaking my head, pulling out of the parking lot.

Not ready yet.

~~~

Later: another bar, some random dive across the street from the bar we were looking for but never found.

More drinks.  Something pink and sweet.

The bartender is transgender, or a cross-dresser, or a drag queen.  I don’t know which.  I am reminded how small my world is, how little I know.

Flashing LED light show on the dance floor. People watching.  Texting.  Giggling.

A girl.  Tall and thin, sleek short hair.  Skinny jeans.  Young and chic.

My eyes following her.  Laughter and teasing threaded with undercurrent of danger and boundaries that must not be crossed.

My dear one reminding me of what I already know.

My heart pounding and head spinning in a way that is beginning to feel familiar

~~~

Later: In her car

She pushes me.  She knows she has to. Makes me admit, makes me see.  Makes me speak.

Grabs me by the shoulders and turns me around and forces me to face this truth.

I can’t catch my breath.

Sobbing in her arms.  Wailing.  Fists pounding.  Fighting so hard against all of it.

I’M NOT READY. I DON’T WANT THIS. I’M NOT READY. I DON’T WANT THIS.

I can’t do this.

It hurts.  It fucking hurts.  I CANNOT breathe.

The ground collapses beneath my feet and I wonder how on earth I will take one more step forward.

It feels like hours that I cry.  Cry like I never have before.  My head hurts.  My heart implodes.

~~~

Later – home:

My head spins.  The drinks and my emotions combine.  Emotional Inebriation.  Dangerous.

Fuck…it’s all dangerous now.

I bang into the walls on the way down the hallway.

He is there.  He is always there. I always want him there.

I don’t remember what I say, just what I don’t say.

What remains unsaid always seems to be the most important part.

This is where the undoing begins….

..