The King Folds

  

          He gave his cards up. The King was holding a royal flush, and he folded. He put them on the table, and with loving eyes he took my hand in his, put all his love into my hand, and returned my palm back onto the table. He gave me back to myself, instead of stringing me along into his created turmoil of his life. I wish I could hand you all the pictures inside my mind; the angles of his face as he talks. the movement of emotion across the table. Me raising my voice, him lowering it. We fought a loving battle, I lost my wager, but won his heart.

"Was it fake?'

I had so many questions, repeated them in my mind how I was going to ask them, and I only managed to get this one out of my mouth.

"No it wasn't fake. It was real. We had magic, we had the fantasy. It was sexy, it was fun, it was raw. It was real." I see the glow soften to a sultry aura.

Real love isn't something you can make up in your head. Love is something you feel. And you continue to feel it for this person regardless of actions, of things said or un-said. You just continue loving them. 

But then he explains that our worlds don't match. He doesn't fit into mine, my house, with my friends, and this I take offense to this.  I'm really not sure what he means because we were not only a dynamic fit for each other, our worlds merged to create something larger than ourselves. Perhaps he thinks I'm too LIGHT, and his Shadow will over-power the inner strength of my Sun. Perhaps he thinks that his Darkness will put my light out. It has only made me burn brighter, even in the pain, the loss, the feeling of separation. But he's made his decision, and his decision has been made. At the very least, for this time period of his separation with his old 7 year-long relationship with Dragon, but he's also battling with his career as a movie maker. He thinks he has too many Demons for me to handle. Hollywood is doing a number on his psyche, and he doesn't want me to watch the bad blood take place. He thinks he's saving me from the darkness of the world by removing me from the equation of his life. My world will keep on spinning with or without him, but even with all the drama, all the tears and transitions of this ride, the ups and downs, I want more. I always want more with him. Even sitting across from him at this restaurant where we always go, where we have always met in our Love and in our Difficulty, I have enjoyed every moment with him, even when it's pertained as "ugly." I have held him at his lowest, and seen him soar high. But he's not satisfied with something. There's something behind all of his words that he's still not sharing with me; it doesn't all ad up. There's still something missing here, an emptiness hiding behind his words.

My capacity for compassion for another human being who is suffering through chaos has grown exponentially through this relationship. I feel like I learned a lot about love...loving even when you don't feel like loving anymore, even when you're suffering, even when you're flat on the ground crying, unable to move. Send them love. 

"Why are you fighting still?"

He really wants me to wave the flag of surrender. And I am "giving up" to the best of my ability as he's shining eyes of adoration on me. It would be a lot easier to completely give up the fight if he didn't continue to still love me. But the glimmer is not dead. There is not emptiness in our hearts. They are full, I would say, even have the potential of bursting.

I'm choosing to live in my fantasy...that my King is building me a castle, that the cards don't lie, that nothing is set in stone, not even stone. 

Artemisia built a tomb for her deceased King Mausolus in ancient Turkey, a Mausoleum so grand she covered it in gold and placed her lover inside...the Taj Mahal, another testament to a man's love for his Queen. Does anyone love like this anymore??! Does true, GRAND EPIC RiDICULOUS LOVE exist in these modern times?! Did humans love more back then before cars and computers and televisions and walled structures of loneliness? Did we depend on our partner more for survival...we must have...there weren't options for separation.

"The flashbacks are coming in now. I remember when we were in the hotel in Reno, totally fucked up, drunk, on mushrooms, laughing our asses off. And I wanted to be MORE drunk, more fucked up. You said 'I will just stick a bottle of Vodka up your ass, would you like that?' We laughed in hysteria for hours. I'm going to miss these moments."

Finally I'm seeing the fact that he really did love me, he really does think of me and remember our time together, that he's beginning to miss the magic we shared. It was real for him, and still is. He has confessed almost everything to me, but is preserving something for himself now.

We fight a little, I yell and raise my voice at him, which is very rare. He calms me down, but there is still discomfort in the air. He picks up the check, he's 4 beers in, me two, and we duke out the rest of our story in the parking lot, where so many of our stories have unfolded on this LA corner near Franklin and Bronson...our Fairy Tale is attempting to come to an end. 

I over dramatize his words and scream them out as if I were in a play, "OH! Our worlds collide, the fairies and the fetishists cannot play together! We're doomed!" I'm running into his body and laughing as I say these words, he's looking at me confused, wondering why I'm even attempting to make sense of it all. 

"You know what D, our world DO mesh, they do intercept, they make a perfect shape in the middle, a Vesica Pisces, and this is where babies are born. This is where creation takes place."

He begins to see my point.

"You put so much emphasis on the Oracle. Well I consulted the Oracle, the cards, when I returned from NY, and I questioned us, our relationship, what it's destiny is. You know what I pulled?

"No tell me."

I pulled the Strength Card, the Empress, and I, the Queen of this story, was surrounded by Swords; the Two, Three, Four, and Five of Swords; all kinds of conflict over this period. And we're still in this period of strife

We shared a cigarette in which I shared our destiny; I drew cards months back in order to predict our Love the path that it would take, and our ultimate destiny together. He’s completely forgotten all of his mention of actually wanting to be in a relationship with me, that he is my future husband, that he truly did love and adore me. I’m standing firm in my power, in my offering of my magic, and I’m really not attached to the outcome.

We are exactly where we are meant to be according to the Cards, the path they are leading us on right now is a time of quiet contemplation, silence before the storm, a chance to gather our inner strength. He still has an uphill battle to fight with his career, and it might get bloody. He still has a woman in his house, cooking for him. He has too many chains attached to him right now to dance with me.

After all the swords and fighting, I drew the King of Coins, which is financial and worldly successs, representing a man at the top of his game, with a Kingdom to share with another. This archetype of course represents him, and if he can attain success with his carreer, he will gain everything. The next three cards I drew are the Ace, Two, and Three of Cups; representing spiritual attainment, the Lovers, and Absolute Opulence and Happiness.

I know a potential possibility is for us to be together, to swim in our electric connection for much much longer. Our love is not dead, it is very much alive between us.

“If you had a Castle right now, we probably wouldn’t be having this conversation, you would probably be inviting me over to your castle right now.”

“You’re good haha, You’re very good.”

He confirms my instinct that this is an artificial break up because we are separating not out of lack of desire for each other, but because of wordly inflictions; a few technical difficulties!

He hugs me goodbye, palms my face and tells me he loves me.

He hugs me, always too briefly and pours his love into me. My whole body is trembling, opening, soaring so high like it was when we first met.

“I love you, slut,” he loves calling me what I am.

He turns and walks away, a turn he did not want to make in that moment but had to. He keeps walking away like a real man would, into his chosen destiny with his demons.

I sit in my car to even out my emotions, but I dare not linger too long as to wallow. I feel complete. I love this man, endlessly, and my only choice is to let him go, to let D go “renegade.”

I just know he can’t stay away from me forever.