I have a secret admirer. Unfortunately, I can't say too much. He is lovely. We met through unauthorized channels I won't reveal. This man has the authenticity I have been looking for.

However, he does not live here. Still, I want to see him and have professed my feelings for him. I know he is authentic. Let me tell you, it is nice about being hurt and being cheated on to have an admirer such as this man.

Tests complicate love in the time of coronavirus, on and off flights, borders, and fluctuating daily circumstances. I sense on the street a kind of pandemic spring fever. Men have walked up to me and offered their hand, wanting more. It is kind of flattering and somewhat awkward.

I have never been a forward person this way. You will find me at the back of a nightclub or concert, not at the front. I do not dance around. I usually stop, take note, sing along, and listen. People probably classify me as a sociable introvert.

My suspicions are that my introversion is why I get attention. I am not the type to cheat or lie. I am not prettier than those girls at the front. However, any beauty I have is natural. My looks are hardly feigned or artificial. I suspect some men, having experienced hurt by certain ladies with agendas, like me for this reason.

Still, I have had a hard time in love, like anyone else. I used to feel sorry for myself. Now I appreciate what I have. The past doesn't matter that much. Put into perspective, those people were inconsiderate. They left my life for a reason.

Everything I have been through has educated me up to this point. I now see the reason I have been through what I have been through. That experience has prepared me for this next journey. If you don't believe in love or predestination, you should.

I changed my sunglasses during the video. The light was bothering my eyes. I waved up to my people and thought of home. The sun danced across the dashboard as I sang in auto tune. The lyrics were so banal, I couldn't believe I actually wrote them.

We had a break. The video director, pleased with the results, told me that one shot was enough. We would go home early, around six in the evening. He informed me that the overall look pleased him and complimented my professionalism. I did not know what he meant. I once offered to blow him in exchange for a video. Songwriting is not enough, you know.

I kept my human outfit on for my duration on Earth. Since I figured this pop star experiment would be the best way to go for my research, I kept several shape-shifting outfits in my secret drawer. Tonight was Halloween. I was scary and going to appear as Elvira. Our hair style was the same.

The outfit appeared before my mirror. I had closed my eyes and counted to ten. Then zap! I changed outfits. Whenever I got arrested for drunkenness, I shapeshifted into someone else and even had different fingerprints. The cops had a hard time catching me.

I got into my pink Mustand with the top down and drove off. Unfortunately, I was running out of gas, so I shapeshifted into a gas station employee and filled up for free. I conducted my research discreetly and sent back daily reports to the flying saucer. My comrades, thrilled at my progress, praised my ability to appear as one of them and make Earthly contact.

While I appreciated the opportunity and support, coming across 50,000 light years from the constellation of Sagittarius has its downside. Talk about jet lag! Wow! I was so dehydrated. Since I arrived here, I stopped aging. I seem to be getting...younger. I don't know if it's the yoga or the Botox. Maybe it's the Einstein effect. It works well for a pop star-the younger, the better.

Summary

When I was a child, I loved music. I sang with the church choir from the age of fourteen to twenty-three. I took five years of choir at elementary school. My parents eventually opposed this interest and forced me to withdraw.

They had controlling tendencies, based primarily on their desires to sabotage a future for my sister and I. Outside of their control, trust and freedom were disallowed. My mother had abandoned my older brother, Philippe, when he was seven. She married my father and left France for Denmark.

My brother, raised by my grandmother and grandfather, Susanne and Georges, escaped this cycle. He also wrestled with a sense of abandonment because of my mother's decision and the neglect of his biological father.

We moved around a lot, owing to my adoptive father's comic business and various career interests.

My adoptive mother hated work and staying at home. No matter the circumstances she lived in and they were privileged ones, she seemed miserable. She occasionally took hostessing shifts or helped in the comic book store and then complained about not being at home, and vice versa.

Mostly, I think my sister and I craved our own identities, escape from constant Comic Con trips across the border, and personal time alone. Raised to excel in sports and academics, nothing was good enough for them. These activities served as nannies and babysitters of sorts. My mother spent a lot of time checking on our progress. If there was any event, she was there.

Music was what accompanied my sister and me on our long road trips through various parts of the United States and Mexico. A lot of time was spent in the desert heat of Southern California.

My father liked to avoid the main seaside highways between San Francisco and San Diego. The area has always been a hubbub of traffic, movement, and commerce. I still remember those trips.

A musical enthusiast who actually valued the art form above money, my father had a large blues, country, classic rock, and soul collection. Stacks of 45s filled up a large, imported wooden cabinet. He played the Platters, the Supremes, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Willie Dixon, and others constantly. However, rock had to be more like the Beatles and less like Black Sabbath; he was convinced it was the Devil’s Music. I loved the stuff. The more punk and metal, the better for me.

I always loved this music and it led to a love of other types of music. His usual attitude towards art was that it was good for making money. He was hardly an enthusiast about literature: any cop book would do. So would reruns of Forensic Files. Art was like pornography to him; it was there to make money.

I felt that children should receive permission to pursue their own interests. My parents felt otherwise. As they had demanding lives, they spent a lot of money on babysitters, trips, and activities for us.

They placed me in a long list of activities: baseball, gymnastics, swimming, art, First Aid, self-defense, field hockey, floor hockey, skiing, ice skating, and many other sports. I rarely missed a party or event. My sister and I had carte blanche rights to go to other people’s houses as children. What we lacked was the right to have others over.

They also had a habit of pulling me out of activities I enjoyed. We received tickets for all sorts of events and were placed in summer camp each year: movies, parties, waterslide events, apple cart racing, etc. I was a relatively simple child.

My Saturdays were spent at the pool or movies. I simply enjoyed the choir. My adoptive father took me golfing, conching, or fishing occasionally. He was devastated as a talented water skier when I was unable to get off the docks and stand up. Coordination was never a strength of mine.

They pushed their convoluted agenda of control once I entered my teenage years. If I enjoyed an activity or became good at something, they would inevitably cancel their support. They would whine, nag, and make threats until I caved in. That is, if I ever questioned them or found some loophole. Usually, they pulled their support and that was the end of it.

This back and forth desire for control extended to boyfriends, birth control, travel, clothing, and driving. Incapable of accepting that their youngest refused to be under their control, they refused to relent on their pushy agenda of hostility to growth and arrested development.

All debates were treated like a Communist committee meeting with them in control of the outcome. Consensus sounded like another word for control to me. It was not a consensus. It was psychological warfare.

A scarlet tear drips o'er the thorn,

As she runs her stained fingernails along the edge.

The blade digs a little deeper:

Beautiful like her lips that speak so silently;

In the irony of a moment, she fades.

As a summer rosebud in blossom penetrates;

The starlit sunlight's gasp against twilight's chill;

A sharp cold turns to the flu.

Dances of fever and anger o'er the horizon:

Blood splatters across the sky.

After the battle of her dreamy cowboys against bison;

She stares up in wonder at this moment.

As she continues to caress the blade;

That lovely rosebud cuts a little deeper into the flesh.

She blesses the curse of roses.