Bullets from Paradise - Washington

May 23
Fair Oaks, VA.

I want to tell you everything, even at the risk that you might think I’m stupid and naive, bearing my soul unashamedly to your scrutiny. I have no more common sense, so I foolishly allow my heart to spill on to these pages, which are now in your hands...

When I met you, my heart was a wounded heart. The wounds were deep and had left much scar tissue. Through my encounter with you, I began to heal. The scars gradually faded and so I was able to open up to you in the same way the buds of the Chinese Lily did, that you had offered me on the night of our first date.

And then I realised my strength is infinite. Some heartless person might have done me harm and dented my faith, he might have tampered with my hopes and dreams, gut he will never be able to steal that intangible essence from me. And so it is that I can love still and trust and hope.

Know this: you are my love, my one and only. You are my sun and my moon, you are the first and the last. You are all that is good in life, you are my hearth, you are the fire and the stillness of dark, you are the beat in my heart, the smile on my mouth and the tear in the corner of my eye.

Today, 23rd of May, it has been a month since the night we danced. And then, remember? On the kerb outside the pub, while the cab was waiting and in front of the bouncers, you wrapped your arms around me and kissed me.
‘Happy anniversary,’ you said over the phone.
‘I love you,’ I said.
‘I love you forever.’
I paused. ‘You shouldn’t say a thing like that unless you really mean it.’
‘Well, this is how I feel.’
‘If you talk like that, you make me wonder what I’m doing over here...’
‘Don’t worry, we’ve got all the time in the world,’ you said and I sighed.

I like the way you chuckle whenever I say something silly and the grape-seed hue of your eyes , like a cat about to pounce on a prey. I like it when you drive me around in your car. I like the way your skin smells like Earl Grey tea. I like the dimple in your left cheek. You are like the soft morning rain in autumn, the pristine snowfields, the scent of sunshine on cotton sheets hung out to dry, the evening breeze through cane fields before a summer storm. You are the bright and infinite blue of the Reef, the light of a candle burning into the eternity of space.

May 25
The moon is almost full and it reminds me of our first night together at the Hotel Como. The night you picked me up from work and took me to the suite. The moon shone brightly through the large windows. We filled the Jacuzzi and drunk Coke out of Champagne flutes. I kept the complimentary rubber duck as a souvenir.

You say that even if I am far away you can feel me beside you. Yes, I am and I feel this connection between us is powerful. What could this mean?

May 29
As you know I spent 3 weeks in San Francisco. I had a superb time: Jahmay, a sexy tall Afro American artist from Mali, who rides a motorcycle, took me to the galleries and to sushi bars and window-shopping. In Haight street the shop owners commented on the Dangerfield top I bought in Greville Street: “Hey, wait a minute! Is that D&G?”