let me smother every aspect of your soul

Some friends you have, he tells me. Standing in the way of injured love screaming for repair...I tell him, they seek to protect me. They saw me hurt, they saw him as the cause of it, they added two plus two and did not get five.

Then he must go back to waiting, he tells me. And hoping against hope the paradigm will shift. And I have no words to answer him.

Why isn't it enough I can acknowledge I still have feeling for him, but I won't come back? Why isn't it enough I can say, yes, I still care, yes, I still hurt when he hurts, but no, my path is not his? No longer...why isn't it enough?

My neko lad begins to despair. He sees me drifting back. It makes him shudder in my arms and I have no words other than no, my love, no, it will not happen, no, I said no then, I say it now, I say it in future. No. No.

I stand in Taiyou, evaluating dances for the alcove. This one goes, this one stays, is this one at the right height? I cannot think what to answer the demon. I turn my face to the darkened moon and receive only silence, and impression of deep thought, for counsel. It's not enough.

Hours pass. I dance with the statue come to life and think. And then...speech.

I love you.

Three little words.

I love you.

...all right. All right. I've been willing to risk many things. Risk sanity, risk consequence, risk the love borne to me from chosen loves and friends alike.

This, I will not risk.

I love you.

I am clouted by revelation on the kanji rug. This is truth that cannot be denied. No more demon.

No more, demon.

No more.