fire underwater

Text message from 'P':

"Answer me this... How is it possible that i am sooo CRAZY about someone that I hardly know? You inspire me 2 be a better version of myself!"

'P' is a beautiful, highly energetic man I'm currently kinda seeing. We met online in a personals site. He responded to my profile with an eloquent paragraph, and all I could do was be intrigued with how it was I affected him. After several written correspondences and a postponed date he finally presented himself to me where I work, at the museum. I made sure he was admitted as my honoured guest, but unfortunately my lunch break was bumped and I couldn't spend the time with him, he went to explore the exhibits and when I came back he had to say goodby. Still, I found myself thinking, Why would an extraordinarily gorgeous man like that be drawn to me?

The next week we met each other in person at the Aquarium in Long Beach. He dwarfed me with his 6'2" stature and hunky frame (I seem to attract men much taller than I). And I craned my neck to see his face smiling down at me and I saw, in better detail, how exquisite he was - chiseled face, fine freckles, violently red hair like perpetually glowing embers and, when he took his sunglasses off, clear blue eyes like topaz.

I was grateful that we had to walk for a while, side by side, to the Aquarium, and when we entered, to see the exhibits. We looked into the massive million gallon tanks of numbingly sublime marine life, a submerged universe unequaled by any place on land. We wondered out loud what it would be like to live in a home surrounded by the thick glass walls filled with water and life moving through it, how otherworldly that would feel. We climbed the stairs outside and went to the petting pool to touch the small sleek sharks (grainy) and the docile mantas (slimy). We saw the otters being fed, and I commented that I'd love to hug them. I could never keep fish, I continued, because as much as I would love to have seahorses and little sharks and jellies, I can't hug them either. But in my mind I was saying, You, though, are magnificent, and I know I can hug you.

I was grateful for having to see the various exhibits because it meant I could distract myself from him, from having to look at how stunning he was. He intimidated me, made me shyer than I already am. And when we sat down and had lunch and talked more and found out more about each other, he told me how inspiring I was to him, that I radiate a positive energy. And I replied that that was ironic, because with the story he told me about himself - how he turned his life around when it was on the edge and didn't seem to be worth much - he was very inspiring, admirable, to me. He was my confirmation that feeling strong and grounded was very possible for me, for anyone.

And then he looked at me, into me, with those topaz eyes and I could not look back and ran back into myself and tripped in the process.

I couldn't look at him. I couldn't. I would've cried.