but where's your heart?

Now I know
That I can't make you stay.
But where's your heart?
But where's your heart?
But where's your...

All day long I've been listening to this song. There's a showroom I've got the link to, has some videos available to show people the quality of rebroadcast. All day long, I've been listening to this one. Going back. Restarting it. Listening. Going back. Restarting. Listening...

And I know--
There's nothing I can say.
To change that part.
To change that part.
To change...!

And I know I live in the nostalgia spaces, all my life, I've lived there, looking forward from the past. It gets old. By design it gets old. But it's how I'm wired, maybe, and I've never tried to challenge it.

I don't even know if I can; but I'm fairly sure I have to try. For good or ill...maybe it's part of the sea change I must suffer through, to reach the other shore.

So many
Bright lights, they cast a shadow,
But can I speak?
Well is it hard understanding,
I'm incomplete?
A life that's so demanding,
I get so weak.
A love that's so demanding,
I can't speak.

Train-wreck love life is picking up new cars, and I'm so afraid it's a panic reaction, because...of everything...and I'm being warier with the new ones than I like. In the long run, that may save any potential interrelationships, because...being wary of interaction, chary of contact, is making me move slower.

And maybe that's good. Rebound relationships, I am told and know, rarely work, but...everything feels like rebounding at this point, and the echo's becoming unbearable.

I am not afraid to keep on living,
I am not afraid to walk this world alone
Honey if you stay I'll be forgiven,
Nothing you can say can stop me going home.

I'm questioning everything now. Every relationship I have. Unknown or known, friends, lovers or casual contacts, everything is receiving scrutiny, whether the individual in question knows or not. Why did I love this person? Why did I want that person? What's happening right now, with this other person? Is it good for me?

That's become a mantra, of late. Is this good for me? What's good for me? Do I know what's good for me? How can I not make this mistake again?

The Great Mistake, it's become in my head. Which may be doing a disservice to any genuine good that was between us, once upon a time, but it's even getting hard to remember the good, it's so interwoven with the bad.

Can you see?
My eyes are shining bright,
'Cause I'm out here, on the other side,
Of a jet-black hotel mirror,
And I'm so weak.
Is it hard understanding?
I'm incomplete...
A love that's so demanding,
I get weak--

I have very little ego, about anything. People tell me I'm pretty and it's hard to believe it, I keep thinking I'd need to be more for people to really see me, and believe me, to be pretty. Less short is the big one. Less short, maybe more curvaceous, definitely more tanned...

...but then I'd be everyone else, and I don't want to be. In a world where I can change into nearly any shape, any skin, fur or smooth or scaled or just plain odd, I am choosing to be short, pale, and neko. I try not to lie to myself that I could be the standard Malibu-tanned Barbie cut-out like all the other girlies with fewer brain cells than they have cup sizes...it's just that I don't want to be.

I am not afraid to keep on living,
I am not afraid to walk this world alone
Honey if you stay I'll be forgiven,
Nothing you can say can stop me going home.

And I think I disappoint people; I know I hurt people; I know two of the people I love, very much, are jealous of any affection I give to others and that still makes my soul curl, because it happened with me and the demon, so now I know how deeply that burns, inside....and I don't know how to change.

And that should be funny. It's something akin to a grand cosmic joke, really. Shapeshifter, I am. Neko? Sure. Human? I've got that. Spider, rabbit, fox? No problem. I can be seven feet tall, I can be three feet tall. I can be small or large. Wings? Pick your pattern. Hells, pick your shape, your substance--feathers or fronds, petals or bone struts--I've got them. In some places, for some things--eyes, hair, wings--Iv'e got a dizzying array of options.

I've got everything from hobbits to a giant rock. Change? Change is my nature.

I am not afraid to keep on living,
I am not afraid to walk this world alone
Honey if you stay I'll be forgiven,
Nothing you can say can stop me going home.

And in all of that, I fear change like others fear dying, and the big bane of my existence is love going away. And I get the feeling I'm just feeling the edge of panic, and trying to ride through it with style...hells, trying to survive it at all, because...I've been here before. I know what I've done before.

Hells, the vampire princeling, far and gone and lost, sent a letter, scrawled in his far from elegant hand, and I was inches from accepting. And by that, I don't mean I chose not to attend; I mean, I was prepared and waiting for any eventuality, open to any possibility, waiting for...

...well. That night? My long-lost first love could have had me back with a question. Even if just for an evening. That is my greatest fear. I can't do that with the demon. I cannot.

These bright lights have always blinded me.
These bright lights have always blinded me.

I say:

And back again, and back again, circling around this song, and to this morning, to this moment, I don't know whom it better applies to, nor if it really applies to either of us. But something in the song, in the lyrics, in the driving passion of it speaks to me, and I respond. All day long I've been responding.

I see you lying next to me,
With words I thought I'd never speak,
Awake, and unafraid.
Asleep, or dead...

Awake and unafraid. Asleep or dead. As long as those three words aren't said. Is that what's pulling at me? Or is that a misinterpretation of the song? I can't see clearly any more, and I'm so close to....hells, I'm already turning to my friends, saying, you make my decisions for me, I'm too tired. It's amazing they don't kick me free as a cumbersome irritant. Pretty or no.

And the drops of sunlight on my skin still burn...

'Cause I see you lying next to me,
With words I thought I'd never speak,
Awake, and unafraid.
Asleep, or dead...

On the other hand, I am relying on their judgement, on their clear vision, in ways I was never able to before. I feel like I have no choice, but...I am choosing to listen. To heed. To try and behave according to a higher good, to try not to get in my own way, to try and let my head lead, not my heart...I have no idea if it's doing any good, but I am trying.

'Cause I see you lying next to me,
With words I thought I'd never speak,
Awake, and unafraid.
Asleep, or dead.

And I'm not going over the edge if they hold me back...I suppose that's something. But it's such a thin margin some nights, and I feel as if I can't talk about any of it...because if I'm tired of talking about the demon, good gods, they must be tearing their hair out...and I know, I know, it's a bad trait, but I so hate burdening people...

'Cause I see you lying next to me,
With words I thought I'd never speak,
Awake, and unafraid.
Asleep, or dead...
Or dead...
Or dead...
Or dead...

Tonight--or very early this morning, depends on one's outlook--my favorite saint tells me I've made a grievous error, but all is not lost, and any time I'm in a lull, I should look him up. Which did make me blink and step back, but not away from him. More...the nature of the error.

Because at this point? Hells, even if it's just another warm body to cuddle, I'll so take that. Don't leave me alone in my head with these thoughts. It's definitely not good for me.

I am not afraid to keep on living,
I am not afraid to walk this world alone
Honey if you stay I'll be forgiven,
Nothing you can say can stop me going home.

And it's funny, the defenses I'm battling down now. Silly little infatuation, my head sneers. But it wasn't. Meaningless trifle, but even my head doesn't believe that. More trouble than he was worth...

...well. Maybe that last one has some validity. But by all the gods, so was I...

I am not afraid to keep on living,
I am not afraid to walk this world alone
Honey if you stay I'll be forgiven,
Nothing you can say can stop me going home.

And if you measure the power in a relationship by the chaos it leaves in its wake when it goes away....well, that 'meaningless trifle' with the demon was more powerful than my most intense and tender trysts with the vampire prince. Hands down.

But I'd rather measure relationships by the strength of them ongoing, and by focusing on the ones I've lost I lose sight of what I have in the present. And I have, I do, I know that I do--my neko lad, my favorite Caledonian, that wandering satellite, the ex-dancer, the fallen angel, the half-dragon, the demonic Drow DJ, the Texan with those eyes...All the lovely ones I share my heart, my mind, my body with, or variations on that theme. They all support me, they all enrich my life, and I would sincerely be lost without them.

I am not afraid to keep on living,
I am not afraid to walk this world alone
Honey if you stay I'll be forgiven,
Nothing you can say can stop me going home...

Everything happens for a reason. And so with this. I have to listen to the universe, and trust my judgement, and--in times like this, when it proves to be profoundly untrustworthy, I need to rely on my friends. Because they won't let me fall. They won't let me go back. They won't let me fail, at this, and it's too important, this time, to let myself go under the anaesthetic of dismemory and slip away...let whatever happens, happen...to start it all again.

I have to be aware for this. I have to keep thinking it through. I can't just blindly go on instinct, because instinct will lead me unerringly to the shore I left. And leaving once was pain enough; I don't think I could leave a second time.

So I have to stay in the water. Even if I'm only splashing about, just enough to keep my head above the waves, not enough to strongly swim to the distant shore. I can't turn back now. I've come so far. I have to cling to that, if nothing else.

The vow I made. The words of friends. Committment and my own will not to give in. Such slender, breakable threads....but they haven't broken yet.

If I make it through...there's a tapestry in this. I just have to make it through this...

(Lyrics are My Chemical Romance's "Famous Last Words")