Stages to a Passion

Stages to a Passion

To Paulinha my child-woman forever a go13/12/11

“Those who danced were thought to be quite insane by those who could nothear the music.” Angela Monet

“J'inspire le mauvais, jexpire le bon” Pauline DM

It starts on a sun-soaked spring day on a rooftop and the little bow she makes in laughing grace with her head and me telling her I m a dancer too and she believing every word because that s who she is. The semen is one of playful lightness and a squeeze of her shoulder when she looks at me with eyes of longing – just another girl, nothing not in store nothing hiding. A kiss next time a dark and lively Friday and coincidence in play and what the hell look at these lips and the way she s dressed in a waving white coat that crowns her darting angel s part. 1 string of kisses and a walk to a bus not home.A few days, could have been a big week, later she s dressed in black and in water and I come with the sun and loose white that makes me look like a chosen one and she yells ‘Tu dechires mec’ as if she feels my equal – surprise – I m charmed as always by this seemingly ‘sans-soucis creature’ and we play cat and mouse and what the hell it s summer and we re of the same kin on that same rooftop as before. She bends forward and I climb over the table past another’s silence through her wanting to welcome me and gift-wrap her a kiss and now she s sitting next to me and while the others do not see pretend not to see or do not want to see our lips seal the soul of the day of the season and yes a minute later she s probably gone away or was it me? – Look at us

Months go by, spring turns to summer, a summer sewn up of other sirens and other stages and other stars and starvations and she s in Portugal not minding me and I m in London not minding her. There are a couple of phone calls with thunder and rocking voices and sparks, a dance show of hers I missed and tears over the phone because of it that appear not to have been tears – no fears no fantasies not the faintest trace of what folly we would bring upon us.

Bombs and an upbeat song when she returns, bombs not of love or lust just of her voice screaming through the phone as if already I was her forever – because that s the way she s built – abundantly and with that branded bend towards the world and its weather and its war-zones. And I yes – first a beer with my man Jamie and then let s hang out – it s a Wednesday and saying summer is still a certainty would be a stretch of the truth. Ping Pong and we linger at the bar with hungry eyes and healthy hearts and we talk some and kiss more and share drinks and stories and a cigarette and the appreciation of one of those fellows there and we go home – maybe with a goodbye kiss but as true as two and two make four I m not sure. Time takes less time to turn to us again and with a sore back and me in a Spitalfields restaurant we phone and she says ‘come to my place to give me a massage, please’ and I m thinking ‘tempting tempting but then my buddies I m meeting in Anglesea arms for beers many beers cause I happen to be a man of many beers and many breaths – or so I thought’ so I say ‘no-go but come and have beers with us if you want’ and she says yes and she kisses me when meeting and she tells me ‘tu m embrasses maintenant quand tu me vois’ and I say hahaha – you funny one and we go and have those beers with those many faces and many allusions to that I wave away without as much as a shadow of a let-me-think-twice ‘of course she s not my girlfriend I don t do girlfriends I m a man of many many many and more and a non-believer of Hollywood platitudes and foremost one who runs to the hills before melodies of passion that is poison and a prison to reach his heart’ – I know now I was wrong. Anglesea turns into Camden – proud like the horses whose names name the stables I chase her up and down desire and we dance a mating-dance and still I think we should not – mate that is, for I read something in her eyes that scares me, a flame flagging more than desire alone, a wanting me with wants that would not wane after a single love-length won. I leave or try to calling a cab and not waiting for her for I do not want to sleep with her I know now as if I instinctively knew of what was to come and tried to fight it with my fists while I still had them. We did sleep together and again and again and by then it was Sunday morning and I went for a run and she left and I pedalled on my Barclays bikes to meet her in Hyde Park and she d talk freely about this and that, ex es and other stunts she pulled and I d smile the smile of a man who likes someone and the scene and feels free and faithless. – Look at me

Day turns dark and preachers gather their spit and anger in a corner and spit it out on a crowd that likes to be showered by eccentrics but will not engage in eccentricities – you would I would and I watch you and I think she s quite something that one – not like any other.

Café Luc it is – I carry you there one laugh one brag one joke at the time, a 12 pound steak that tastes like home, a colleague passing by and you seductively hiding your lovely loving smile in your sweater is what I remember – and your eyes keep laughing but suddenly not no more and you tell a story that struck you as unfair and you were naked and struggling and I was not there I m so sorry I still am and I feel a first gust of anger rising, maybe it was guilt maybe it was sorry maybe it was sorrow, yours, maybe it was a first wave of passion spun out of the wrong garment and most probably it was fuelled by many measures of wine.

And there and then I reached the point of no return. – Look at me now

A father’s part a lover’s part a stallion’s part – I don t know – what I know is I walked you home – laughing again but still not walking because of that back of yours burdened by too many dances in your past where I was not – I can t repeat it reveal it enough. You show me your apartment and your roommate on the couch and your room and with not a second’s thought nor a closing of the door we kick of our clothes and courtesies and caring for that back and we fcuk like stellar stuntmen on your bed and you sigh and you sigh and your roommate dancer defies this silence-but-for-the-sighing and we laugh not minding anything in the word but our mixing sweat and when I come I feel I saved you a little bit I saved a little bit of that past that you welcomed so impulsively. We kiss goodbye I mount my Barclays s bike I get home I don t keep on thinking that s it I jumped and I m jailed now until time or treason or truth sets me free – I just sleep, semi-tranquilly I sleep as I guess you do too.

Monday sees me mixed up in tedious tasks of minor importance and it is but Wednesday that you come set up camp in Angel with Shin who s a Korean dancer friend of yours and I join and when I arrive I want to surprise you because already I am a fan of your over-flowing moods and hearts and you say ‘waaaw – my lover’ and I just smile thinking I know better but anything not to spoil the moment – for that’s it I m already in love with our moments and Shin says through many mojito jars ’no he didn t come to our dance because she s not misted by love and her own arrangements with life and I say yes I know thanks for setting me free and Paulinha is mildly disappointed then takes my hand and leads me to the girls bathroom where we nearly get it on but the whole standing up in a crowded bar seems just too much for my fellow down there I sometimes call Brutus – not that time. But I guess after that you come to mine or I to yours.

And that’s where it becomes a blur. We meet again, generously and genuinely as if we were forbidden lovers who d throw their lives away for just one last kiss one last look one last touch. We drink we dance we are oblivious, obviously head over heels, I m fighting it feeling it facing it, writing it to my friends in words I would still use today and you scream to me writing ‘you gave me a heart and now it s beating full-caisse’ – time stopped and we ll have seven children, time stopped and I m a jailed king, time stopped and you ll never know peace again, time stopped and we ll be the most envied most alive most passionate pair the world has ever seen – as I said time stopped and we reinvented the word Love – look at you.

‘Look at you’ she d say, a Friday night in August after a bank camp booze cruise and me not getting into China White because you re coming and I don t want to cannot mix my life at your side with my hunter’s heart so hard to ground.

. So I sit next to a guitar playing street man and roll up a cigarette, indulgent with myself and waiting for your elegant vaguely out of purpose walk to come my way. And then you appear and I smile and I think ‘ God that one s different ’ and we jump towards each other, meet in mid-air dance on the side-walk for a song or two and fall in happy embrace – good day great moment for the street guitarist.

We walk home, pass by the house that would become the house of the first haunted me (but I m getting ahead of myself) I carry you on my shoulders, upside down that is and we live all crazes lovers should live. We come home and God don t ask me how or why but we manage to start a fight – I m telling you it s not going to work I m going to leave you at one point I don t do relationships I need to chase girls and you say ‘go it s an open door’ and then we re in the kitchen and you cry and you cry and you say ‘toi, t es ephemere’ and I say yes but I ll always love you and I know it s true and I know I m trapped (I still am today I just bear it with different tears) and you cry and I knock your clock to a not-ticking anymore and a scar that we call the scar of scolded love (or at least we should call it that). – Look at us

We make up and fcuk like gods because we truly do fcuk like gods and the next day sends me to an early departure to mister Freddy s wedding in France and I write on trains and I walk on countryside roads and I hitch hike to destination in the Bourgogne and Henry sees me first and says ‘God, I can t believe it, Daaf, you re in love’ and I smile and say ‘tjah to say I m not would be a lie.’

I remember me being stuck in greyish Paris the next day finding a bistrot and hitting the beers and the long-drinks, pen in hand love out of hand out of my hands and you racing through my gut because I call you and you re not there and my mind crowds itself with images of you playing a wild part at a wilder festival playing your cat-like part of the night in full day-time with next to money mild flirtation on your mind no doubt. And I sink and swallow that anxious feeling that feeds on both insecurity and indecision and that would come to play a bigger part further down the line. I m meeting an old ‘m en foutiste’ of a guy and we share our broken lives and broken hearts, then empty our glasses and mixed-up minds and rejoice for all those reasons to live and rejoice and relive our lives this time full of colourful joy and coincidental happiness. And that s exactly when you call me and you face not a broken boy but a true-hearted traveller a poet pregnant with passion for you for life for us. We part, my man and I, and he gives me some charras to share with you. Paris-Londonis spent speeding through my blackberry keys typing ferociously what the outcome between you and me will be should be cannot but be and it involves passion and pride and paranoia and the trot of a thirst that cannot be halted. The train stops I buy pizzas and beers and wine and jump on my bike and race to your door and there you are ravishing in your grandma’s hippie pants (that would later also be mine). And you play your hippie part when you lift one foot as for a karate kick and then curl your fingers and lips to a perfectly playful come come come that could have served as manual to Odysseus’s sirens. And I m twice the man I am when I tear off those pants and show you your money s worth again and again and again. Look at you

And later we stand on your terrace facing our mirror – the first time that time – me wearing my beige pants and my torso and my open green blazer and you wrapped in red and white duvet with your lips sleepy and lush and your little nose and eyes peering at the mirror peering at us peering at life, life in motion. And I take a hostage of that moment until the day I die. And I mock my hundreds of falls and I thank my hundreds of births for I know I have embraced the magnificence and magnitude of that moment – singularly chosen – Look at us.