On this summer afternoon, I still wait to hear about the status of my romance novel. Yes I guess I am impatient, still working on selling my house, and having the terrific life that a very good friend of mine, a Mystery Man (with whom I am in love –ouch) told me I am going to have.
Whatever this post is, it is also a post to a Mystery Man
It is also a post to you, whoever you are; I will never tell.
I have no idea where I am going to live. Just that I will be moving –and I am looking forward to beginning this new life, with or without you, but preferably with you. Definitely my preference, but I can’t say that it will ever be yours. Wish I could say that. Because I love you.
Because I want you to love me too. I even told you that I know I am your “Side Chick” (at best –and I’m okay with that? What is wrong with me? –willing to be the side chick just so I can have you? Why don’t I want more for myself? –yeah; I already know you are the best possible lover, and I probably should not have told you that, but I did because it’s true, and I realize that I am too public for you, Mystery Man, but I don’t want the light of what I feel hidden under a bushel. I light it just for you, light of my world. Do not let the fire that warms you go out, already dimmed a bit by time itself, but I am making up for that. I am blowing on the flame; my hot breath is working that fire, fanning those embers, restoring the hot potential, living up to my blazing name…
I also said some other things that the pressure of all this forced me into saying, trying to get my house prepared for sale, worrying about my sick mother…and taking it out on you.. I’ve been accusatory, saying things I know simply aren’t true… about when I was in the perfect world of your arms… I wish I didn’t have to apologize but I do. Mystery Man, I didn’t mean it, what I said about boats, especially. I was, am under the duress of all of this; and I’m too afraid to tell you. I am not sure you would even listen to me, and this is my unadorned apology. I am sorry Mystery Man –I just ask you to please understand. My mind is going in circles, round and round your sweet clockwork face –you know I look at your face and love it, can trace every crease in both my mind and heart…
and this version:
but mostly it’s “If You Stay in my Corner” (The Dells):
I know I have a volume of poetry coming out every soon now, I can wait to see the galleys, my 11th book! “Wannabe Hoochie Mama Gallery of Relities’ Red Dress Code” –and I am so excited about that! –words cannot begin to describe the joy I feel just thinking about that book, cracking the spine, smelling it, even licking some of my favorite pages, photographing myself holding it, traveling and reading from the book! –I cannot wait for such moments;
Here is the cover, and it is available for pre-order right now on Amazon dot com :
and the author photo (taken by graphic artist Ansted Moss):
Now of course, I’m looking forward to Wannabe, but I do admit to being even more excited about just the possibilty of this romance novel, because I get to partcipate in such ideal love and passion through my characters, eveything I may want, the characters experience; how could I write it and deny the protagonist the experience I would want for myself?—if I could have it– maybe someday, because this writer believes in love..
I will always believe in what love can accomplish with that Mystery Man (you), or with any man; I am not the kind of woman who will be happy without a flesh and blood man –who knows who I am, a woman who wants a man who will be hers, and I will be his.
I sure hope it’s you. I know I don’t have to tell you again, but I sure like saying it, get caught up in the refrain of it.
But even more disturbing right now, is the increasingly deteriorating condition of my mother. She is losing her grasp of reality… Her diabetes is out of control; she’s been falling and not telling her doctor. She’s not taking her medicine and using profanity the likes of which I’ve never heard her use. Glaucoma, Thyroid trouble, Heart disease, Out-of-Control Hypertension
Her situation is so exasperating, she is not taking her medicine, and this sick diabetic woman is now about the same weight I am, this has never been the case! –always since I can remember, 40 pounds heavier than me. I understand that her backyard lawn has not been cut in a couple of months; my father died on 13 July 1980, and when I called to remind her that it was the 36th anniversary of my father’s death, she didn’t know what the day meant, nor did she know me –I had to explain who I was…
(She is 86 years old, and I am 62 years old)
A little later, some pictures of my mother and my mixed race father, and my non-black paternal grandfather, with Caucasian, and Native American Heritage and Ancestry from India
(includes some artwork by my mother; she was born in Alabama, a tiny town not on most maps, and was very senstitive about her color; when she was more lucid she told me that she was always called the “Little Black One” –this casued her to use “Nadinola” all over her face, arms, legs, neck, to lighten her skin –this was very important to her! She hated being dark skinned, had high yellow dreams, I was not high yellow at all, but did have the prize hair, all my life, but even more so now –she encouraged me never to go into the sun; she is so embarrassed by her hair that she always wears a wig, and even did so for my wedding (you can see that Nadinola glow [somewhat radioactive, it seems to me] in her face. My father was already sick; what was he really thinking?):
Bride Thylias, with my father and just with the bouquet, 25 August 1973:
I had a tremendous amount of hair then, the teenager that I was.
I made all the dresses for the bridesmaids and flower girl in my wedding (sewing based on what I learned in a single semester of home economics in seventh grade):
and if my mother could understand it, she would be shocked that I walk in the sun, anyway, and yes, even flaunt my “good hair” –I’m glad I have it; I will not lie, and this 62-year-old woman with multiple sclerosis, who almost died on 29 July 2011 when a cranial aneurysm ruptured, and my head was partially shaved, but the hair has grown back profusely! –in a straighter and natural texture; I’ve even gone walking in the rain! (trusting that my hair would retain its length, and not revert (to what it never was):
–I have quite a thing for my hair, I admit that, and I also admit, in my mind, at least, that I walked to that elusive Mytery Man –but I fool no one, and certainly not you; I fear I will always love you, and you are certainly most deserving of love (there is no better lover; nothing compares with being in your arms –I admit that I just want you to love me back; that is all I want… I can’t even sustain any anger toward you… I’ve tried and it doesn’t last. What is it about you? –I fear I’ll never be able to let you go!
Mystery Man, just love me back; that’s all; just love me back! –now I’m begging you… I liked much better when you were chasing me; you know how to persue better than most men.. What more do you want from me? –please don’t say nothing unless that is the truth
–I learned this from this Mystery Man, from you, that I am in fact beautiful, you always told me that, and no one else ever did, not even my ex-spouse, I was so lonely and hungry for compliments, just wanted to know that the man I was with liked how I looked, a shapely and sexy little package, and was happy to be seen with me; my ex-spouse said he didn’t tell me because “my head would swell”; Mystery Man , you didn’t care how big my head was; when I told you, Mystery Man, that you were the only man who called me beautiful, you could not believe it, so I told you, which was true, that outside of catcalls, whistles and other unsolicited reactions, it was only your opinions that matter to me, and this is more true now than ever (with what I’m experiencing with my mother and those well-meaning souls around her, I need “The Comfort of a Man,” the Comfort of you, Mystery Man.
and I learned to believe you. My ex never told me that I was beautiful, but now, I KNOW I AM –so even if nothing else happens between us, I learned valuable things from you, endless pasion; I was loved by you as every woman, as every prerson should be loved, the heights of pleasure, heights of desire, there is no denying this, and if nothing else, I learned how to express this love to you… You were patient with me, realizing what I didn’t know and realizing what I was able to feel with you… and I have nothing but thanks for you for that, sort of similar to
this thank you to my ex
But I was older than the writer of that thank you to my ex ; I experienced my first real adult love afffair with you. In most ways, I have to admit that you Mystery Man are my first love as the adult woman I am now, and there is no wonder that I want physical love, all forms of love with you again… Should come as no surprise at all. You are the Right Kind of Lover! as in:
It is that good being with you whoever you are, a man of my dreams fully fulfilled A man I will never forget and, truth be told, do not want to forget. Ever. I just want you to want me so much that you won’t mind admitting it, that I won’t have to be a side chick or a friend with benefits. I want the comfort of a man, the comfort of you Mystery Man –there is nothing else like it, no one else like you….
Side chick
and ideally not just secret lovers, though I cannot lie to myself I would take that; you are such an exquisite lover, well, Atantic Starr can say it better:
No secret to that wonderful, dammit! Mystery Man that as Luther says, I came here for you to love –for you Mystery Man, all for you!
Luther Vandross, “For You to Love”:
So “My First Love“, and “Comfort of a Man” for you, everything for you… –“I Will Always Love You“
and I will Always Love you
Mystery Man, I just pray that you will Love Me back; that’s all, Mystery Man –and I am not as high maintenance as I must seem to you.
Lord help me, I so love you, Mystery Man, and Lord help me, sometimes I wish I didn’t, but I keep wishing and hoping, as in this Dionne Warwick rendition –I am yours, but are you mine? –are you kidding? I know you like long hair, and I didn’t buy mine; if hair were all it takes, you would be mine… but if even the long hair fails, this 100% natural butt-kissing hair, you can play with my hair all day, all night and it will not come off, I do not have to worry about “weave sex” as discussed in the film good hair what can I do? And if my hair won’t do it, nor any of my other natural looks that I so want you to desire… My tiny waist, my shapely hips, those peachy breasts that ripen whenever you are near, if these things don’t entice you, what will? –and why do I care so much? it isn’t as if you’re the only man in the world! –but you are the only man I want in my world.
Trailer from Chris Rock’s “Good Hair“:
I do want to be in your heart! (so embedded that without me, you’d have no heart)–no lie there!
So there you have it, waiting for “Wannabe“(that’s definite), hoping like crazy for my romance novel in which the female character is loved back, and then some, my dying dementia-ridden diabetic mother with hypertension that would have already killed the more ordinary; she has already given up on life, and is just waiting to go home to Jesus, while her house that my father bought in 1963, and where she still lives rapidly deteriorates… Oh I remember being in the south, and my father able to go into stores that my mother could not enter; I remember hiding in the car, being so frightened, because in that tiny Tennessee town, there were some who did not feel that the races should mix…
I cannot explain exactly how my paternal grandfather could even exist… Caucasian, Native American, and Indian (as in “India”) and my own problems with not only finding the right man –which I’ve done– but having you willing/able to love me back… Unless you have married… I do not know.
If you are that deeply in love with somone other than me, I would like to know so that I can begin to adjust, but let me tell you, there is no man on this earth I would rather kiss, and there is no man on this earth I woud rather touch, and there is no man on this earth I would rather have kiss me, no other man on this earth I would rather have hold me, and no other man on this earth I would rather hold —
But I do need a love of my own! as in:
If you think I’ve confessed to you Mystery Man how much I love you in this post, I assure you that I’ve confessed this to you even more in texts… I so want you just to notice me… I so want things you said in the past to still be true… This is not the first time I’ve said any of this, and I fear that sometimes I should keep my blabbermouth shut, but if you can love me for what I am, I should be able to say anything to you… I even asked you to tell me if you thought you could ever love me; I asked you to tell me that you’re sure you never want to hold me again, to never touch me again, to just tell me, because I can’t wait for you forever, but if you know you can’t ever love me, I want to know that…
but if it’s possible, as much as I say I wouldn’t, I would take you back–not you you’re gone, still BFFs–, so rather elevate both of us from BFFs to lovers… –which is what I want, but if you don’t? Too bad for you, but, for now, I love this Mystery Man! –I love you–even if I shouldn’t.
I have never loved a man the way that I love that Mystery Man: you:
Now some pics of how I look right now, and what this Mystery Man (you) seem willing to give up. My hair: no wig, no weaves, no hair pieces, no extensions, 100% natural hair, waist-length and rooted in my scalp; 98 pounds, no plastic surgery anywhere; I have never had to diet. Everything about me is natural except for some hair dye from time to to my hair. No bleaching or skin whitening creams. My own “yellow” teeth (I will be going to the dentist). I was told that I have dense breasts in my most recent mammogram (a week ago), but no abnormalities detected dense breasts –as I’ve had since I was a teenager in triple D cups –really got me noticed, and may have helped that deacon decide to rape me, but they are natural, no implants –never, As that you Mystery Man, know better than anyone…
I love you, Mystery Man. I honestly love you. You know I do.
For the record, this is just too much for me, trying to prepare to sell my house, a son I love dearly who isn’t that cooperative, and then his partner who lives with him in my basement (so far, I haven’t received even a penny from my tenants [who aren’t that tidy]), the romance novel, trying to find my way on my own, without a car, too difficult for me to feel that I can drive safely with my optic neuritis, a consequence of my MS–but I can walk six miles most days, three miles to a locaton where often I find so many geese, and amazing sunsets:
–and yet I must still shop for food, and I want to do these things for myelf, and see what might happen (don’t I hope) with that Mystery Man (you), and if not you, then someone else. I hope it can be you –please “I say A Little Prayer”
and this version of saying a little prayer:
First task is to sell this house and be free of a house too big for me to take care of by myself, without help from my tenants, as it currently is, one of whom is my own 25-year-old son who has psychological problems, that I don’t believe he inherited from his Bangladeshi sperm donor paternity. Such donations and family backgrounds are screened. Sperm donations are kept for six months before being used. I was lucky in that one visit was all it took for me to conceive… the difference a good sample makes, I was told, by the fertility clinic’s doctor.
I recall that when my ex-spouse found out about this pregancy he did not want me to have; I remember that he said, “Didn’t I consider AIDS”? -and he would probably say that my son’t psychological problems stem from the donor. I do not know. I want the best possible outcomes for everyone.
And yes, you better believe that I want you, Mystery Man… But, I want you to want me too.
Do I really ask for too much in asking for love?
So this is my crazy life right now, but it is life, and I wouldn’t have it any other way…
Thank you for reading this.
Sorry that I rambled on and on… I have so much on my spilling plate… And that Mystery Man
is not here.
I am never giving up on love, even if that makes me a fool for love, fool, fool , fool for that Mystery Man ; fool, fool for you.
I hope I am able to report something better about you, that one day, you are no longer a mystery man because we enter a better relationship, one that isn’t all me, for now, my impossible dream, but I really pray for more than that…
And here’s Frank Sinatra, saying it better than me, The Impossible Dream becoming possible:
This is more than enough for one night; I love you Mystery Man enough for a thousand and one nights, for a million nights, for every night. –I can’t help what my heart feels, one thing that is for sure, Mystery Man, “You’ll Never Find Another Love Like Mine“
(Lou Rawls can help me with this one, and I do need help, loving this Mystery Man [you) as I do):
Good Night, Mystery Man; don’t let the bedbugs bite
Thylias Moss Writing 