Beauty Is A High

"Fear played no part in the life of mine,

Acknowledging this stranger with the matches to my fire,

Knowing not the expectations I would find,

We gave way to our desires.

Heartened by the lure and unpressured by design,

Persuasion had no power over passions that I felt,

For Love in its own entity struck me as divine.

Salt in the ocean running long with days to be,

Endless mornings spent next to the lull,

As adventure roared with will to find me,

I succumbed to its everlasting pull.

I could not keep composure as a lady always would,

Confinement was not in my mindset,

And my cravings for freedom he much understood.

Bare skin became a temptress,

Giving way to its each and every wish,

I can still picture the sweetness,

Plummeting off the dock into a lake of lavish."

-Myself, 2018

Behold, the story of my Love for Passion, and the reason I decided to write him, and the whole world, through this novel on my life.

I met Passion amidst the relative beginning to where my eating disorder had really begun to take over. I was doomed to fall apart from the beginning, as I now imagine myself the janky ole’ truck from all the cartoons where it shakes and shudders until every wheel, door, and piece of the frame fall away to leave a singular seat and a steering wheel cruising on an unlined rim, barreling down a hill and screeching to a halt.

Our love could never be placed under one single word, for that would not do it justice. He had blessed me with the gift of feeling an unmistakable bond I didn’t think I could ever share with anyone else.

We met upon a whim after we had been talking online for the past couple days. It was the summer of my senior year of high school, and I soon found myself engulfing my mind in the treasured mystery of his. He was kind and cautious, but in a beautiful way as he didn’t want to screw things up with me. He had this crazy social side, with millions of small stories from his past, and all the places he had lived. Time seemed to fly at the speed of light going on that first date, and the honeymoon phase thus lasted for months on end. We did everything together. We basically explored all the inns and outs of Southern California. All the perfect places for Long Exposures, all the abandoned malls, every nook and cranny of downtown LA, and every IHop in the vicinity of us. He gave me the gift of photography, and taught me how to smile and feel loved. I remember countless nights spent curling up to watch Netflix, adventures to tunnels, haunted universities, a sunken city, and infinite amounts of time at the beach. I remember the clothed table tops, and the air force one plane right overhead within the Ronald Regan library, where we had our prom. I remember swaying to the music, until the night shut down and we crawled back into the Jeep to make camp on the beach. I remember Thornhill Broome, and sneaking onsite after dark, only to be caught fucking their once, and being promptly kicked out. I remember Roscoe, his little terrier dog, and his father who was poised and intelligent, but the kindest and modest of elegant men at that. I remember his mom, so beautiful and sweet. She treated me as a daughter, and inspired me to become someone as poised as her. I loved him. We counted down the days we had left together, savoring each with some new adventure. The county fair and Disneyland, then he snuck me over one last time. Mid way through our final night together, the tears began to flow. He made me promise to be better than my parents, to go out into the world, and to kick some ass.

I suddenly accepted being the one that had to stay strong, even though I wanted so desperately to crack, when I revealed to him my eating disorder. He made me promise to get help. We savored our last blissful morning together, sneaking away in my truck back home, and loading it up for the move. My mom said she miscalculated and we wouldn’t have needed to leave for one more day. We were overcome by joy, and went to the county fair for one last night. We stopped on the side of the road to cuddle and kiss like we used to, but after laying silently for minutes on end, he had said the silence was proof of how sad we were. We went home and fell asleep to movies, then woke and returned to my mother’s home. We drove Passion back to his world in Westlake Village, and I had to keep from sobbing the whole ride there. Our mothers interacted for the first time, and we went disappeared into the guest room to hold each other one last time. His mom gave me her old lululemon’s clothing, and there and then is when I decided to run a marathon and prove to myself that I was stronger then I ever imagined I could be.