he’s very sweet and very dreamy on stage. despite the crowd of us which earnestly feels like the entire population of hawai’i has gathered to bask in his light, it feels like all night he is looking at me. i know it can’t be true or possible or even reasonable but it feels real, as real as anything, as real as midnight. and in this midnight i am rendered amazed and perplexed by his ability to be or transmit or imply sunlight when he sings and moves and watches me the whole time.
he is dripping in his exertion, sweat falling from him in waves and it does not deter him in the slightest. i wonder when music found him. i wonder if he’s ever questioned his perpetual summer. as i’m enjoying myself in the crowd i am allowed to feel, for the first time in a while, the inherent safety and non-entity of myself. like i am unclasped from myself, my fragile and often self-destructing body; i am as fluid as a spirit, angularity and softness, guided entirely by the whims of the concept of going. i am unable to stop looking at him, or to stop thinking about the fact that he couldn’t possibly know what a sweet, sharp image he is.
something about his silhouette, paired with the shape of his urgent music, makes me glad to be able to witness it, smug to call myself witness, frankly too self-satisfied; as if his talents, beauty, and perplexing sunshine were somehow my own. all the while he is looking at me, singing to me and none of the other equally as transfixed disciples in the crowd, i am so unsheathed by pleasantness that i am bold and stupid and hopeless enough to believe that not only is he singing to me, but for me. i let myself believe it. i am distantly aware of the passage of time, but i let myself slip further into blissful delusion.
my body is a collection of tender moments, all equally but uniquely effected by his voice and striking demeanour. in another world so close to this one, i see myself floating on stage and enjoying the show from a closer but still not close enough vantage point. he must have looked away at some point but all i can remember are those striking eyes and him looking solely at me, just looking and looking and looking.