You’ve got your pick of the world. The richest, the handsomest, the brightest. A smart person hopes to lobby for a position as your friend. Earning it the hard way, and the hard way is filled with easiness. A gentleness and bliss. Maybe someday if glamour disappears, you’ll find a version of it that adores you lives forever over here. I’d like to think that’s love. The waiting eternally for a ship that might never show up, and passing by the other ones. And never regretting it even once. The heart loves what it loves. If not in this life, well, maybe in the next one. If ever you visit it, you know here is the kind that has a strong foundation. The walls are sturdy. Here is a roof that will shelter you when it rains. Made of the strongest material, it’s not going anywhere. When the body grows feeble, the love is only stronger. It’s hard to know. Someone has a straight husband who isn’t straight. Somebody has a gay friend who isn’t gay. That second combination can be a lot more fun, for a young beauty and an adoring older man. All the adoration and the flourishes and the special touches. The seeing you on a pedestal as if you’re Judy Garland. When they took down the Stonewall Inn in 1969 on the day of Judy’s funeral. It was the final straw. Something in them broke on that day. They saw the corrupt and demeaning cops enter. And that was the final time they would – ever. They got mad as hell. We’re not going to take it anymore. And it started the whole movement! To freedom and expressing love without hiding it! Why should love ever be shaming? Forced to live in dark corners while things not made of love are embraced in the open. I’d love you in the way Judy was loved on that day. Always letting you know the goddess that you are, so much so that you feel it. You believe it. You *know* it. Especially on days you don’t feel this way. Showing you, in nights you’ve forgotten. Whimsical and lyrical on the surface, while beneath it, though, there is no mistaking the passion. A longing desire for you, that keeps me up at night. Nothing will fill it, so he doesn’t even try. There’s never any replacing you, with something inferior. So why bother at all? It’s you or nothing. Because all in-between is anticlimactic and disappointing. There’s you. And then there’s nothing at all. But in the nothing the guy can scratch out something. The memory of your face. The look he so felt was for him. It blows his mind! It astounds him. That you would ever look at me. Because it’s you. Simply because it’s you. A look could come from a beauty who is a clerk at the dollar store, or it could arrive from the Duchess of Monaco. Or any beauty in-between. It’s nice, but there’s no feeling that comes with it. A look from you is life-changing. It’s life affirming, because it’s yours. Maybe someday. ‘Maybe Tuesday will be my good news day’, as the song would say. Maybe it’s no day at all. But think of all the days in the meantime! Where you filled my life, you fill my journal. Your eyes are starlight. You’re the first time I’ve ever felt alive. And anything that has ever lived can never die. The deep mystics and even greatest scientists suggest it. I owe my awakening to life to you. And this love that runs through it. It would be such fun! To be your friend who adores you. Someone who can talk the talk, too! The business jargon of networks and industry leaders. Of broadcasting and cable and streaming. But it’s always you he wants to talk of. Eight hundred pages so far must surely prove it! And he’s only getting started! He figures after page one thousand, that’s when he’ll really get this party rolling! All of this is simply a warm-up exercise! It’s all been establishing your character as they’d say. Your character is admirable. Now we can delve into plot and story! Your back story! Your forward story! The where’ve ya been, and where you going?? You’re the central figure. You cut a figure! On my heart and wherever it is you enter. People can’t shake you once you’ve appeared. I can see so many, spending days reclusive, in properties collected that had no real purpose. Hearing the waves crashing and the sound of distant laughter. It’s some rainy damp July morning, and all thoughts are on you. The one who got away. She’s older now. She has grown children who look a bit like her now, in the way she was back then. He wonders if she’s happy, or has she simply given in. Has she stopped feeling? He’s still thinking of you, and the pain of “what might have been.” I pray that’s not the road for me. I love you and there’s no in-between. But that doesn’t mean I can’t be happy. You brought me life! But I don’t want to end up the angry teen who screams, “I never asked to be born!!” I’m thankful and I’m grateful. Oh, the magic that you are. I fall in love with you every day. All over again. I’d love to be your gay friend, who isn’t gay. Your steward, who’s got a couple of prime spots on the East Side. Your valet, who has three covered valuable treasures at home in a driveway. Any role given to me – any version of friendship at all! – no matter how large, no worry how small, I’d embrace the role. With a flourish! With gusto. Any mask I’d have to wear, in a day where everyone is wearing masks – now more literally than ever! For me, it’s the embracing of the role! There’s no masking the love. Whatever the design or definition, it’s the love for you that’s in my heart. It’s all consuming. And it’s so very giving. That’s what it’s all about. So it’s about dressing up that love in whatever costume makes it acceptable. But never mistake: no matter what it is, it’s always love, for you, at the center of it. You’ve got your pick of the world. But please, if ever a day arrives where you feel deep down inside that it’s love that is missing, please remember me. I might be in some old chalet by the sea, reminiscing over memories of days you would send your look to me. Your face is the most beautiful I have ever seen. I promise I will still feel that way no matter how it has changed. You’ll remember me. I wouldn’t have aged so bad, there’s something forever youth-giving in holding onto love that is timelessly pursuing. And you’ll let me play a part. In your life. Whichever role you wish me to take on! I’ll wear whatever mask you decide. In a world where everyone is wearing them. And yet you’ll know that all I am is love for you. Every cell in me is made to adore you. We could have such fun! And keep it light! And like the sun, there’s no masking the light. The truth always shines through eventually. There’s no masking the joy that would spill all around! Love for the sake of love! It’s all I feel for you. It’s all I ever will. It’s all or nothing. And there’s nothing I wouldn’t give. You’re all I’ve ever worshipped. You’re all I could ever adore. Maybe someday far away. On a damp day in July where there’s a chilly breeze. You’ll pull up in what’s now a very old CR-V. You’ll step out, look up, and smile! And say, “Remember me?” Oh, those eyes of yours! They see through *everything!!* And I’ll look down! Practically falling out of the window! And I’ll smile right back at you. “There’s that look!” I’ll say. I always dreamed it might be for me. ❤️☀️