I saw you again last night and it left me still in perfect breathhold. I wanted to watch your hips, the baggy grey slacks that rode your wave, the way your hair was loose and then pulled back and then loose again. Sometimes you tucked it up in a bundle with pink sunglasses that occasionally dropped and fell over your eyes like an uninvited screen between you and those who need to watch you.

You were the first on stage, in a group of Geisha women, your eyebrows painted apostrophes at the end and beginning of words I could only imagine. Your mouth, large lipped, but it’s the teeth I keep coming back to, teeth with a small gap in between them, rounded and soft like there is no language you couldn’t twist suave and full as you press the syllables between your tongue and the hard calcium of your life.

You were the first on stage, and you were chewing gum even though you were part of a Japanese Geisha show, wrapped in kimono with apostrophes above those eyes that anyone, absolutely anyone, could fall into and find reefs full of coral and blowfish and silver darting runners. I wanted to tell you I’m taking a dive course this weekend. Would that make a difference? I watched your mouth take two or three well-selected chews on the gum, and I giggled to see you do that. Then you must have swallowed.

And I know you are a drag queen, and that technically speaking, you like men. But I’d like you to consider becoming a lesbian. Please think on it. You should know that you are more woman than I’ve seen in a long time, and I’d be willing to be your fag hag (I’d even put on make-up for you, darling) or your man (I’d work out) or the father-mother to your delicate little child. You are the only creature who could make me turn hetero again, dear, but you and I would both know how that would only be a technical label, and not the reality of our little androgynous love affair.

Your Geisha dance turned techno before too long and you seemed somewhat uncomfortable transitioning between slow sexy and rigid Geisha twitchings. I thought of that movie—the one with Claire Danes and the gay opera singer—when the gay opera singer was saying how he knew all these positions that indicate “Woman.” The rigid supplication handhold. The sadness arm overlap. I wanted to tell you, my love, to stop trying so hard, and then you listened because all of a sudden you weren’t a guy anymore, but a woman so wicked-smiling and naughty. You were spinning with your stomach rolling outwards, wrapping your small hands on your thighs, and you knew we were watching you. This is the hallmark of women: the knowledge of who is looking (perhaps we call it intuition, but it is something you can see on a woman’s face at times).

I stared up at you in the center of the crowd, and maybe you would tell me that you were staring at the man next to me, but I know you sensed the full amaze of my desire and were really looking at me. I saw your eyes keep coming back. I saw you wonder who that white girl was who was staring at you. I saw you feel flattered and smile at me. I saw your wily female flirtation spin across the floor at me.

After watching you, my love, I felt dizzy. I lost my dancing mojo. Normally, it is hard for me to lose this sass, but I felt all my attention run upwards to my gaze, and all the motion leave my legs. I needed to sit down. I needed to breathe slow and watch you.

I also need to mention here that the little white boy with the pageboy haircut was really obnoxious. Have you noticed how his shoulders are much much wider than his anorexic hips? How he has no carne fresca (como la tuya, mi cariño) on his thighs? He’s not good enough for you, dear, and you needn’t have encouraged him just to not hurt his feelings. He’ll be fine: I heard him speaking English and really, if he’s American like he looks like, he’ll probably be back in San Francisco before too long. And besides, he was effeminate, but I do that better than he, plus I have the whole macho thing down pretty well too when I want to. He’s really a pale comparison.

If you need further encouragement, you should think about how I was the first person on the dance floor, how everyone was hovering around on the edges like it was some goddamn junior-high supervised dance-party, and until I got out there with my gorgeous tattoo and my swinging hips and flurried hair, nobody was dancing, but then fifteen minutes later, the floor was full of fags curling up around me, spinning me, smiling at me, and mouthing the words “First I was afraid, I was petrified…”

Yes, I would learn all the words to your affirmational drag songs. I would come to your every show and hover on the borders of the stage, mouth open, eyes only for you.

And if you’re worried that your friends would make fun of you for hooking up with an American lesbian, consider how in love with me they were. How gayboys the whole dance floor over were pressing Redbull’s into my hands and looking me up and down with an “mmm-hmmm, girl.” Truth told, I could pass for a drag-queen too… just think of how meaty my upper arms are: the sure sign of a male in costume. The only person I’d dress in high heels for, darling, is you though. But I’d do it. If you were worried about your friends.

To finish this love letter that I am pressing into my eyes and emitting versus high-frequency gaydar-compatible radio waves, I will say just once more: I have fallen in love with you. When I told that cute little Columbian fag that you were the most beautiful of the drag queens, I didn’t mention how much I loved you. I didn’t tell him that I wanted to stare at you endlessly, and couldn’t he just move a little to the left? I didn’t mention that I was not kidding, that even though it appeared ridiculous and inexplicable, it was nevertheless, extremely true.

Oh, how I wish I could go up and press myself between you and that obnoxious little pageboy anorexic who was dancing with you after you shed your Geisha and put on your punk-girl outfit and swirled your butt so extremely naturally and convincingly. How I wish I could press my fingers to that mouth you purposely used to beguile me.

Instead, I woke up three times last night thinking of you. I dreamt of interactions we never had, soulful moments of Seeing each other. I picked myself up out of bed, went to the bathroom, and then returned, telling myself to find a more realistic dream. Like one where I am floating on the outer recesses of the solar system in a high-riding skirt with mesh stockings that slide right on up to my bikini red underwear…