“Are you sure you can handle me?”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m afraid you’re going to get tired of my shit?”
“The question is whether you’re going to get tired of my shit? Whether you can handle me?”
“Can you handle me saying I’m coming at eight, and getting there at midnight?”
“How do you mean? Like I have no life?”
Silence.
“What if I died?”
“Don’t say that!”
“Wouldn’t that be funny?”
“No baby, I don’t think that would be funny.”
“Wouldn’t it be funny if you found the perfect guy and then he died.”
“I don’t think it’d be ‘HAHA’ funny.”
“Okay, not like that. Like Alanis, ironic..”
“Yeah, it’d be ironic.”
“What would you do?”
“I’d cry. I’d grieve as long as I need to and then I’d find a way to get on with the rest of my life, and remember you in my prayers.”
Silence.
“Wouldn’t you get angry with God for taking me away?”
“Why? I want to be with God, and you’d be closer to that Divine Spirit than me. Why would I be angry because you went home? I’ve been left behind before. I’ve left others behind before. It’s the way of things.”
“Are you sure?”
“Why are you preoccupied with dying?”
—–
He’s told me more than that he’s afraid of really loving anyone, because he loses everything he loves. He says it’s why he can’t show his mother how he really feels about her. He says it’s why he never really allowed himself to fall in love completely with someone.
He told me the story about how his granny loved him so much, that even after she developed Alzheimer’s, he was the only one she remembered right down to the end. She was the one who raised him and loved him, his parents were mostly absent. She was the one who made sure he ate, and loved his hurts away. He says she was the only one who checked for him.
He says he’s still angry with God about what happened with his granny, and he’s shut down so many receptors because of it.
In my mind, I’m already reaching for my crowbar, ready to start working on prying open those shut down receptors. We’re pulling down each other’s defences almost relentlessly. It’s only fair, he’s been doing it to me too.
—–
“Does your dick get hard when you think about me?”
“Oh yes.”
“Actually that happened today. I went hard, and because of the cold from the AC in the office, stayed that way for the longest time. There I am at work, unable to move, playing game after game of solitaire and talking to him trying to get him to go down.”
Laughter.
“What did you think about?”
“What we did last night.”
“What, licking my pussy or fucking me slow?” I whispered into his ear.
“Both…” Then his tongue slipped out, tickled the spot between my upper lip and gum, before plunging into my mouth. More fuel for the small fire inside me.
It’s not the sex. That night, we fell asleep next to each other, curved and curled around each other. This is sex, or comfort alone. More stuff is going on here than either of us is willing to admit, but absolutely powerless against.
“I knew the moment we met that there was a reason why we met.”
“I know!” I agreed.
“It’s as though, everything I want to do, is what you’ve already done. Since my grandmother died, I keep praying and asking God to send someone to help put a hand with me. To change me. And it’s as if you’ve come to pull me out and away from all I’ve been comfortable with. I’ve felt all that stuff has been holding me back, holding me down. I’m thinking I may not wait as long as a year to come up to England.”
—–
So here’s the official notice: My heart is in serious danger. The walls are coming down, long built defences crumbling.
Here’s is my real Sweet Thing. How is it I was so blind? How could I have read all the signs so wrong. I was getting the messages you know, but was so concentrated of something and someone else, I couldn’t see what was right under my nose.
He said for months he’d see me coming in and out of my apartment. He remembers the first time he saw me.
“You were out walking with NC. I saw both of you, and thought, ‘that is one nice ras.’ I saw you by yourself going to the shop, and I said hello. You answered back. That’s really why I asked C to introduce us.”
You see what I mean, about what Astra read back in February?
No one, no one, no one in the world can convince me that the power of God is not in my life. No one. All manifestations of God are working in my life.
—–
On Sunday, suffering from a slight case of PMS, I got a nice little crying jag happening. I had to pack, I was so unsure about everything. I didn’t want to think about what would happen if I got to England and YMK decided to change his mind, decided not to come up.
Yesterday morning, he came by for coffee early, and before we even got good into our conversation he says to me, “You don’t have anything to worry about. I’m not going to change my mind baby. I’ve made up my mind I’m coming to England.”
He came up behind me, and with a smile on my lips and a tears in my eyes, he gathered me up and kissed my cheek, my neck and held me in his arms.
I know him. He feels like an old friend, an old familiar somehow. Like we’ve walked many roads together more than once. I’m still kind of freaked out that he answers the questions my internal mind asks. It still amazes me that Astra saw him, made me look at him when I was determined not to.
—–
We both stayed home from work yesterday. I had cramps and well, he had his reasons. He stayed with me most of yesterday, and he rubbed my back, my belly and took care of me while I was in pain.
Then later that night, I showed him how to take a ritual bath, and guided him as he begun what I hope will be the first steps in helping him to heal. He’s agreed to come to the river with me this weekend. My final offering to Mama Osun before I leave Trinidad. He’s going to get his own stuff and make an offering with me.
From the time I met him, I’d been ‘seeing’ Mama Yemoja as his mother. I told him what I thought more than once.
Last night he asked me what he needed to do to honour the Sea when he goes. So I told him, take toolum and black strap molasses, and told him to ask his mother if she knew who his Orisa were.
This morning when he came for coffee, he said, “You were right by the way.”
“Hmmmm… what do you mean?”
“Yemoja is my Orisa.”
“I knew it!”
—–
Am I sure?
I dunno, but I know I’m par for the course…..
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