Short, bald and fat.

Funny how the way I came into this world is how I ended up as a thirty-five year old man living in New York.

I have created an impossible love affair, falling love with a man who doesn’t know I exist, a tall,blonde gorgeous man who looks like an over muscular ballet dancer. I doesn’t get more impossible than that. He possesses eyes so deep set that I’ve never even seen the whites of them, have never been closer than a few dozen yards away from him, never close enough to smell his sweaty body. I’ve never heard his voice. The only sound coming from him has been his running shoes slapping on the pavement and dirt of Central Park, where he jogs several times a week.

I first saw him in 2012, back when I had still had wisps of hair, and less belly, when my belly button wasn’t as deep. As he ran past me his chest bounced. And so did my heart. At the time, he was running with someone younger and less muscular. Maybe a colleague, maybe a boyfriend. But then I never saw him run with anyone ever again.

That’s when my imagination went wild. That’s when I was determined to run after him.

But before that, for many years after that, I would stay up all night crying about him. Now it is 2019. I am no longer fat. Or bald. But I’m still short. But that’s okay. Because I’m fast. Not as fast as him. But gaining speed.