but where's your heart?

I watch her judge him. I say nothing. I watch her slip through his fingers. I say nothing. I watch him torn between old loves and new loves, and I say nothing.

I watch her plays grow more and more obvious, her invitations to me to come play, come dance, and I cannot speak what I'm thinking. I watch her invite me to play the meek little submissive at her feet, and I say nothing.

My words are locked inside their cage of bone, and I do not know what will free them. I wait because I do not know how to act. I watch because I do not know how to speak, what to speak.

The radio at my elbow sputters into static life. Fire in the engine yard. Again.

The only surprise is that I'm not more surprised.

I will say this: if I have accepted, even only within the limits of the grid, someone's hand on my jesses...as far-ranging and wild a creature as I am...If I have done that, for anyone, regardless of what the limitations of those bindings might be...

...what makes anyone think I would do that twice? More to the point, what makes anyone seriously consider I would do so willingly, never knowing from day to day whether I'd be leading or led?

My hand pauses on the wall, started mid-way between contemplation and exhaustion. I sigh. I'm doing it again--guarding myself, walling myself apart from any who might hurt me, drawing back, losing touch. Losing contact.

It's not enough to simply stop, though, reverse such action, pledge again to be better, more open, more willing. I lean against the wall and watch the flames, merry with distance.

All right. I have no answers, only more questions. I'm waiting, universe. Tell me what to do next.

(On repeat while I wrote this was this song. When the time for retrospection comes, we'll see if it was a good choice or not.)