Me and Him
photography by Matt Gunther, shot in Chelsea, New York. styling by Memsor Kamarake. grooming by Jessi Butterfield hair by Dennis Bailey. pants DAVID HART
by Christopher Leo Daniels
Me: “Crush of course means fixation, obsession.”
“Right.”
“What are you obsessed with? What is your crush? Or who?”
“I’m so bad at that. I don’t fixate, for some reason. Oh wait!! I am obsessed with the beach.”
“Let’s go!”
“We should!!”
Me: “I should call your people right now and tell them we’re going to the beach.”
“I love the beach…and wait – OK – hammocks!! I’m fixated on…. For some reason this has become the perfect metaphor for everything I need in my life right now – a hammock.”
Me: “A hammock.” “I went to the Bahamas with my family, and I got away from them for a few hours and went to a beach by myself. Alone time is so important to me, and they had some hammocks out on this beach, and I proceeded to lie down, and as I was just floating there under the coconut trees my brain started going through these ideas like, “That’s what I need. I just need a hammock – in life.“
Me: “…and exactly when did the edibles kick in?“
“Right?!” He laughs. “I had nothing. I was high on life.”
As the laughter fades, he then becomes wistful, still. I study his eyes, which drift off to a private screen only he can see.
“In terms of a relationship especially. I want someone who feels like a hammock someone I can just lie in, feel weightless, who can support me in those moments when I am unable to support myself. There are these moments when I’m working towards balance, and I think part of finding that balance is when I can release and someone else can just… be that support for me or… that hammock for me.”
His eyes return. He can see me again.
————
photography by Matt Gunther
styling by Memsor Kamarake
grooming by Jessi Butterfield
hair by Dennis Bailey
tuxedo DAVID HART, shoes FLORSHEIM
tuxedo DSQUARED2, cuffings OFFICINA BERNARDI
shirt DSQUARED2
grillz Dyllón’s own