I'll paint you mornings of gold

A great deal of inference comes into play in virtual world interaction, and even in games with 3D NPC figures. Because they do not often show facial expression, or, if they do, it's either Uncanny Valley turf or not...quite...synched up with what's being said...a lot of what we go on are things our minds are thinking--how we think they sound, or how we think they look, or what emotion we think they're portraying.

That being said...



...there's a certain deer-in-the-headlights look I'm developing, and I can't decide if that's me reading into...well, me, or--genuinely what's happening with the way I'm choosing my avatar to pose, dress, behave...



Anyway, /Vae Victis\ is participating in the next Madpea hunt, "Cupid Catastrophe". This is a grid-wide hunt with a specific time limit--fifteen days, from the first of February to the fifteenth, with an interesting angle. The more hunt objects a hunter finds, the more "MadPoints" and prizes that hunter gets at the end.

As with other recent Madpea hunts, it's HUD-based--the basic "Cupid Chaser" gets a hunter the hunt HUD, and a "Fool's Flyswatter"--the better to flatten Cupids and hearts with, I guess?--while the "Cupid Conqueror" package gets the HUD, the Flyswatter, whatever "The Dominator 2020" item is, the "Heart Mobile" (I'm assuming car, not hanging thing) and the "Cupid Catastrophe" outfits.



And this is the "Eros" Gemmed Crown Halo that Grim made for the event, and this thing is GORGEOUS. I know, I know, I say that about a lot of accessories, but...this one really is. I have this Valentine's picture idea in my head now, for a skin I haven't worn often--the Elemental Golden Dust Diamond for 2018's Fallen God and Goddess contest from Fallen Gods. That could be really stellar.



I may post another run in that skin, even, if it comes out well. As an entry or on the Flickr.

And I'm thinking the lost-deer effect may not be what I'm putting out, in SL, but what I'm bringing in. There are days that are more...mass confused flailing? Than others?



So, remember what I said about this piece being gorgeous? This is it from the back, and this is the first headgear I've seen from /Vae Victis\ that had this kind of backing. What I mean by that is, I'm used to the front patterning--in this case, the horn strata of antlers--matching to the back, and...not here. Here, it's backed with the smooth, slightly rounded look one gets when metal accessories are hand-poured. Complete with the stamp detail that makers often press into still-cooling metal pieces. I am sheerly amazed.



All in all, this is a lovely piece, elegant and sweeping, and while there will be a slight charge, it's the charge of the game HUD from Madpea, not a charge for the piece itself.

[[Insert from the Editrix before posting: this was shot in the photo studio warehouse in Whispers Families, and I completely forgot to show the HUD. So I had to take one last shot, below, to show that off!]]



[[And there you go! Simple selections, but as shown here, highly variable. Good luck in the finding!]]

no rest, I've stayed here too long, it's time to move on

Funny thing, love. There are times when I've wanted it, and never discovered a single shred of proof it existed. Other times I've wanted anything but more love in my life, and could not escape it no matter how I tried.

Whether I will or not, my heart chooses for me, and I openly acknowledge it's made some staggeringly ill-thought-out choices, both for me and those my heart wished for. But then, heart is not mind; heart is merely want, and need, and far more than occasionally, the loss of all rational thought. It's desire over deliberation, craving over consideration. Always.



Let's tell the future
Let's see how it's been done
By numbers, by mirrors, by water
By dots made at random on paper

But with one other heart...There was a binding made, there was a binding accepted, before ever the controversy of collars and titles commenced. We knew we were linked without needing other affirmations. The first time was also the first binding, by blood and spirit, and it only grew deeper from there.

And I have done everything I could conceivably think of to separate myself from that binding. Meditation, affirmations, therapy, intoxication. Privation, and gluttony; ascetic reflection. Arcane rituals of severance, incense thick on the night air. Self-denial. Self-accusation. Rationalizations.

Nothing has worked.

(I am ever careful, even virtually, when drinking from another, because this is the risk I run in all worlds.)

It was more than a year from the date my mind had declared as the tenebrous "end point" before I accepted another offer. I spent a full, traditional year mourning for the loss of him, and ever wondering if it was just that he moved on, or that he, in fact, actually died. And it was another year past that before I began to feel tentatively secure in the offer another heart had given me. Before I felt free enough from that binding to move through the strands of it remaining, and reach out once more.

(Though, in large part, it doesn't matter; what was damaged between me and that offering heart may never fully heal. We may never be what we were to each other, and...accepting that has been...damaging in itself. I don't fault the binding for that; I fault how things happened the first time that heart and I parted.)



By salt, by dice, by meal, by mice
By dough of cakes, by sacrificial fire
By fountains, by fishes, writing in ashes
Birds, herbs, smoke from the altar

And the writing, the writing, it goes on, it doesn't stop. When does it stop, will it stop? I want to say it feels uncontrolled, but the truth is--I could walk away from this at any time. Save for...maybe not. Maybe I can no less walk from this project, than I can disconnect from him.

When he told me 'forever'...I think he meant it, or, at least, some inaccessible part of me means to hold to it. Which leaves me in a peculiar quandary. If I cannot refute him, where does that leave me? If I cannot unbind the binding with my own powers, will I hear his echo in my heart forever? I want to hate him, I do, but...that...whatever inside says he is not mine to hate, only to love.

But how can love flourish in a vacuum? I think time has proven that it withers, that it shrinks, but the binding upon me, at least, does not let it fully evaporate. I am stuck with the dregs, and some nights, they are bitter indeed.



A suspended ring or the mode of laughing
Pebbles drawn from a heap
One of these things will tell you something

My hands are red with my own heart's blood, sectioned, on display...but only my eyes will ever view the resulting work. There are too many secrets, too much of me and him both, in the pages for me ever, ever to publish. This does not lessen its impact, however. And I'm feeling the impact--every word typed is every emotion felt again, is every situation relived, and afterwards, reexamined for contradiction or flaw.

I feel the revelation of future pain coming, from the perspective of the past, but I may well have no greater understanding why, once it arrives. And perhaps, I never will. Which is galling in itself, but yet another impossible thing I must find a way to accept.

Somehow. I cannot spent two more years pining for the lost one. He got lost on his own.



By nails reflecting the rays of the sun
By walking in a circle, by red hot iron
By passages in books
A balanced hatchet

Maybe, after all this time, it's too late to evict. Maybe it's time I think of his constant ghost as less binding force, and more...simple irritant. Several more years will smooth all rough edges of memory, and I will have a pearl to look back upon, instead of shards of glass in silk. Much less injurious for my heart to beat around, at any rate. Survivable, at the very least.

After all, it doesn't seem as if I have much choice.



Let's tell the future
Let's see how it's been done

(Lyrics are taken from Predictions from the album Days of Open Hand by Suzanne Vega.)

when the world is burning

I was fine until I returned to the carnival.



That's not true. I've been suffering since you left, I've been tying myself in knots trying to figure out why, likely nursing and magnifying my hurts until it became hard to breathe, hard to function. It's what I do.



This hit deeper, though. Because I thought--because nearly everyone thought--that you were the good thing, that you were the shining exception that proved my bad luck with men was just that--luck and chance.



But you turned out to be the same thing. And when you left, I was told by those I loved that I owed you nothing. I was told to just walk away, leave you behind as I had been left. I was told you were just like all the others, and I shouldn't spare a single thought to your passing.



But the promises I'd made I still felt bound me, and I struggled for over a year to find my way through a path suddenly overgrown with poisoned thorns.



And the worst of it, the very worst of it was not you leaving. That was hard. That was unimaginably difficult to get through. But no, the worst of it was turning away from something else potentially as good, damaging it--perhaps irreparably--for the hope I thought you represented.



You were not hope.

You were mystery and abandonment. And I am still limping through the whole of my life, trying to make sense of everything after.



I finally have an idea for NaNoWriMo. But at the end of it--whether I succeed or fail--I will have whatever word count I have, and a manuscript that is absolutely unpublishable. And worse, I will spend a solid month in self-excoriation. I will reopen old wounds, perhaps cause new ones, because it's the only way I see to move forward.



I will not type your name, I still do not know what I will do to represent you, but I will not do that. I will only use my words, not yours, in the letters I will select to evaluate. But that does mean I will likely go through your words. Is it worth it?

I don't know.



But you'll be with me through one last harvest, and maybe this time I can set fire to the chaff and preserve the good things, and move on into somnolent winter to heal.



Happy Hallowe'en.

(Shot on the Heart of Darkness sim, as well as Disturbia [Adult sim], the Freak Show Gacha Carnival, the Carnival of Chaos at the Wash, and the Carnival of Souls.)

I want a stainless steel road stretching off to the sky

The Behind the Steam blog published an official review of the 2 Cent Show album by Steam Powered Giraffe, and overwhelmingly it's positive. Which is good news indeed!

[Help] Kneecapitator: So what's with this popup as I log in? "Given recent events", watch your info? What happened?
[Help] Hexman: wow hacked... again
[Help] Scourging Gale: presumably a bunch of gullible nublets have given their account info to scammers
[Help] Scourging Gale: oh
[Help] Scourging Gale: I stand corrected
[Help] Hexman: I should say blizzard since it wasnt limited to just wow

In brief: this news has been everywhere at this point, but Blizzard got hacked. Specifically a lot of matching information the hackers can use to access user accounts for Diablo III and WoW (that we know of), so that they can get in to those accounts and change those user passwords.

It's a huge, huge hack, and it's pretty grim in a lot of different ways.

[Help] Kneecapitator: Glad I quit when I did and decided not to buy any more of Activizzard's crap.
[Help] Kneecapitator: Then again, my bank blacklisted them years before that, I was playing on timecards from Wrath on.
[Help] Hexman: I want to return to the days when I could go to the store, buy a game, go home and just play it, I dont want to log into some server, or give my CC# or create an account, I just want to play what was in the frikkin box that I spent 50 bucks on

Yeah. Those were the days.

[Help] Ettu?: amen Hexman
[Help] Hexman: hopefully they will see that you cant have accounts hacked if you dont require your customers to HAVE accounts
[Help] Hexman: with the exception of MMOs for obvious reasons :P
[Help] Kneecapitator: Back when copy protection was "What's the third word in the second paragraph on page 15 of the manual? XD
[Help] Sgt. HellTouched: I was going to say...
[Help] Hexman: I dont believe in copy protection, it simply does not work.

Well, yes and no. Back in the days they're talking to, "hacking" was pretty much "we photocopied this sheet with the flag colors and country names on it, use it when you open the program". Things have gotten a lot more technical since then.

[Help] Hexman: and adds a cost to the product you purchase

Always.

[Help] ThornyDevil: it's like Jeff Goldblum said "Nature finds a way"
[Help] ThornyDevil: except with piracy
[Help] ThornyDevil: and thus better

Or worse, depending on your point of view.

Turning to more personal topics, what do we do when the thing that gives us joy and delight turns into anguish and pain? All the work of our hands turned to dust and splinters, ashes and thorns? If we're anyone else, we start over somewhere else, somewhere that doesn't burden our heart more than it gladdens it.

Ah, but I've always been stubborn.

So I listen to the demon's music, and dance with the serpent of honeyed tongue, and vaguely resent the moon while I wait for a dawn that may never come. It could be a very long night indeed, and I still have no answers. I thrash inside the cage I helped to build and wonder when I'll feel free enough to fly through the open door.

Maybe flight is not what I need. Maybe it's not the method of movement that's important, as much as the desire to move. Maybe it's less about wanting to stay, and more about wanting to leave.

Or maybe I'm still falling, and I need to hit bottom before rising again. I just hope I figure out where I need to be, before I crash through bedrock.

I've also realized something else. Over the past five months, I've been reacting instead of acting--to pain, to hurt, to confusion, multilayered and dizzying in scope. And rather than face up to the things causing that hurt and pain, I've been trying to shut them out entirely, desperately seeking distraction, oblivion, blindness...thinking that if I can't see it, I won't hurt over it. Out of sight, out of mind? Or at least pushed far enough away that I start to forget entirely.

But I'm not that lucky. I never have been.

The thing is, I can't do that anymore. I mean, I cannot keep carving bits of myself away, in the hopes that my losses won't be quite enough to kill me before I heal.

And I've always healed slowly.

What I've always done is not the way I get through this. And just because I don't see another path doesn't mean there isn't one. It just means I've been standing in my own way again.

So we start small. Still not up for the rounds of social engagement, but I might show up in Cubidon now and again. And I'm going to make another stab at getting the writing off the ground again. Building things, even if they're just for me and never for retail. Making an effort, as hard as that seems, because waiting for things to feel less stressed and strained is also not working.

At some point, we have to realize that we fell into the hole on the path all on our own, and no one is going to come back and save us. That's not the point of falling. We have to save ourselves.

And if it's hard climbing out of the hole, well, maybe it needs to be. Maybe that will convince me not to fall again.

Or at least, not fall quite so far next time...

I wonder where you are tonight; no answer on the telephone

(from the loss album)

I cannot see me parting from you
I see no place on the road ahead
where I would willingly part from you
where I would choose to leave
the safety of your shadow...

Still not walking away, but that no longer seems to matter. After all, I'm the only one here. It's not like there's anyone else to walk away from...

Is this the giving up point? At least briefly, I think it might be.

Also, this is really disturbing. It's like exposing the vile underbelly of the net we know and love to sharp, reflecting light...and then giving those malformed and mutated creatures the ability to speak.

History of that link: basically, Mountain Dew is having a contest: name the new flavor. They're still taking votes, and they have said (as ridiculous as this now seems to be) that they will choose a winner from the top ten list. Based on the number of riffs on "apple" as a flavor component, I'm going to go out on this limb and say the new flavor will be apple-based. In some sense. Maybe.

But it's been appalling to watch. Reload the page, you'll see what new aberrations appeared in the top ten leaderboard. So far, our selections seem to be hovering around diseases, strange internet memes, My Little Pony characters, feeble racism, and several worse concepts that I don't even want to mention involving various body fluids. If that's the mind of the internet at present, we are in terrible, terrible shape.

[Update--prior to publishing, even: they seem to have taken the site down entirely. I can't help but think that's a good thing, frankly.]

In other pop-related news...sort of...this surfaced on the intarwebs tonight. Apparently the bottle of Orange Crush is there for comparison with the pygmy goat.

Okay, then.

And more strangeness from tonight on City of Heroes:

[Help] Pseudo Shock: So this is the Famous RP server, that's awesome.
[Help] Arkon Prime: I smell a troll.
[Help] Pseudo Shock: No, I'm serious. That really is awesome
[Help] Pseudo Shock: I'm not being sarcastic, I'm just not used to it

This is not the first time this has come up. It always confuses me slightly, because in one sense, it's just another game server, no big deal. But in the other sense, yeah, it's the main RP server--but why is that a big deal?

[Help] Crathos: this is a rp server? my friend just told me he plays on this one
[Help] Crathos: and I'm not being sarcastic
[Help] toxic mouth: i think it's a bit of both at this point
[Help] Fortunata Sin: Unofficial RP server.

Well, yes, it's never been officially named as the RP server, mainly because that would mean NCSoft is validating all forms of RP on Virtue, and well...I'm quite sure there's some RP that goes on they want a lot of distance on, just in case.

[Help] Crathos: ah. I just knew it was a heck of a lot busier than guardian
Well...yes. Virtue and Freedom (Freedom being the "unofficial" main NON-RP server) are also the two busiest, most populated servers in the game.

[Help] Pseudo Shock: Ahhh, that's still really cool though.
[Help] Satsuma: so is that an incarnate RP level or what?

What, Guardian? No, Incarnate-level play happens anywhere. There's a specific Incarnate-level zone called Dark Astoria, but that's a recent addition. Prior to that, running strike forces/task forces weekly, or Ouroboros flashback missions, would gain Incarnate shards, threads, and Incarnate salvage drops--all of which are necessary to "level up" characters past 50. (Seeing as how there's still--and there may be always--that cap of level 50 for actually earning experience and leveling.)

Unless Satsuma meant VIP content, in which case Exalted is the server locked to only subscribing players. (I have one character on Exalted; sadly, I never play her. I likely should try, because I'm starting to become elitist enough to want a world without spammers, or free-to-players 4channing in Help and Looking for Group because they can't do anything else.

[Help] Pseudo Shock: A little of Role-playing and a little of your self?
[Help] Crathos: like a guy I saw yesterday posting asking for someone to RP his brother? that other lvl?
[Help] Fortunata Sin: Yes, that level.

I'd say "bwuh" over this, but just the other day, someone approached a friend of mine in Second Life, and asked her to be his wife because he wanted a baby now. He then asked her how he could have a baby (what, sweetness, you never took a high school health class?), and how he got married.

He was about a week old.

[Help] Slaughtron: There will be bouts of RP all over the place. Seems that a lot of the "good" RP takes place within SG's...
[Help] Fortunata Sin: I'm the same Slaughtron. I tend to RP only in my SG. And for the non-RP communities sake i don't RP in PUGs.

For the unintiated, "PuGs" translates to "pick-up groups"--as in, groups of people who don't know each other, running for the sake of the mission at hand, versus folks who run because they're in the same SuperGroup, or because they're friends in or out of the game.

The big reason behind not RPing (as a generally unspoken rule) around random folks is that they may not understand. While just about anyone can RP in Pocket D, say (or just stand around and listen), it's a bit harder for random RP to really take off properly with a random mix of people. Not impossible, just more difficult.

[Help] Slaughtron: I try and be IC on PuGs, mainly cos sometimes people get a kick out of it. I like that. But If someone has cat ears, or a name that sounds like a porn star, RUN AWAY!

Cue hysterical laughter on the part of me, considering the prevalence of catgirls everywhere.

To be absolutely fair to City of Heroes, there aren't as many catgirls as there used to be, but considering there are official supercatgirls in the game's mythology, catgirls are an acceptable heroic (or even villainous) alternative.

in my head blood-colored rain falls down

(from the loss album; photographer of original image unknown but found on Lilit Ghazaryan's blog)

I've texted him twenty-one times
and still my phone don't ring
and my wild imagination, son, is
makin' up scary things...

no one shares a kiss like that
and then just doesn't call
last night he promised me the world
and now I’m gettin' nothing at all

(from the loss album; Pierre Auguste Renoir's "Woman With Green Chair")

and the Mississippi's mighty
but it starts in Minnesota
at a place that you could walk across
with five steps down
and I guess that's how you started
like a pinprick to my heart
but at this point you rush right through me
and I start to drown

(from the loss album; altered and cropped image found on Hockridge's photography blog.  Original image All Rights Reserved)

I don't understand
your love is so cold
it's always me who's reaching out,
reaching out for your hand

where is your heart?
'cos I don't really feel you
where is your heart?
what I really want is to believe you

(from the loss album; picture widely available, but most notably seen on Katie Metcalfe's poetry blog)

watching my dreams turning to ashes
and my hopes into bits of clay
once I could see, once I could feel
now I'm numb, I've become unreal
I walk the night without a goal
stripped of my heart, my soul

(from the loss album; altered image from unknown photographer)

and so it is
just like you said it should be
we'll both forget the breeze
most of the time...

and so it is
the colder water
the blower's daughter
the pupil in denial...

(from the loss album; altered image from one of Anna Plotnikova's fashion shoots. (More info on Anna here)

it seems so much is left unsaid
so much is left unsaid
but you can say anything
oh, anytime you need
baby, it's just you and me

Something interesting: as I put this together, an underlying theme became obvious: clay. Clay, water, earth, and the alchemy of change that makes them more than the sum of their parts. I've thrown clay on wheels, I've coil-built pots, I've taken various classes for various techniques when I have time. Building things has ever been an inherent hobby, if never occupation.

So maybe that's where I start. Find something to build. Walk away from the familiar, and see what else shows up. Disconnect, in a sense, to find connection elsewhere.

And this is going to be the last one, for at least a while. I lasted thirteen days, but it's enough. Enough enough enough. Declaring a moratorium on more relationship posts until at least August.

(Lyrics adapted from various sources, including "He Better Be Dead" from Stealing Angels, the Indigo Girls' song "Ghost" [this is a great cover by the Stanford Mixed Company], Shirley Bassey's "What Now, My Love?" [link goes to a performance on her 1967 television special], "The Blower's Daughter" from Damien Rice [using footage from the film "Closer"], and "Where Is Your Heart?" from Kelly Clarkson [link leads to a live performance on Music@AOL].)

I can't love you this much, baby, and love you from afar

(from the loss album, adapted from An Echo of the Divine; a better view of the statue, which is outside the Art Institute in Chicago, was taken by James Birbeck and can be bought as a print.)

when will I see you again?
you left with no goodbye
not a single word was said
no final kiss to seal anything
I had no idea of the state we were in

(from the loss album, and both adapted and reduced in size from a shot taken by Brechtbug of a statue in Woodlawn Cemetary.)

I know I have a fickle heart
and a bitterness, and a wandering eye
and a heaviness in my head

(from the loss album; adapted from image found in the Alchemy of Grief entry on the Raven Essences blog)

but don't you remember?
don't you remember
the reason you loved me before?
baby, please remember me, once more

(from the loss album; adapted from an illustration on the Health News blog)

when was the last time
you thought of me?
oh, have you completely erased me from your memory?
'cos I often think about where I went wrong
and the more I do, the less I know

(from the loss album; original by Callee MacAulay from Toronto, Canada, and seen here)

but I know I have a fickle heart
and a bitterness, and a wandering eye
and a heaviness in my head

(from the loss album; adapted from the Waclaw Wantuch original, seen in the book Akt. All Rights Reserved.)

but don't you remember?
don't you remember
the reason you loved me before?
baby, please remember me, once more

(from the loss album; adapted from unknown original, but seen on the Loving Awareness blog)

I gave you the space so you could breathe
and I kept my distance so you would be free
and hope that you find the missing piece
to bring you back to me

(from the loss album; adapted from unknown original, but seen on the Test-Mistake blog)

why don't you remember?
don't you remember
the reason you loved me before?
baby, please remember me once more

(from the loss album; adapted from original photograph found here about Laura Ford's "Weeping Girls" series in Edinburgh, Scotland. More information can be found here)

when will I see you again?

(from the loss album; photographer and model unknown, but adapted from image seen on the Najafi blog)

(Song is Adele's Don't You Remember.)

the opposite of love's indifference

(from the loss album and the Where There Is Life blog)

there's a chair, in my head,
on which I used to sit
took a pencil and I wrote
the following on it:
'now there's a key,
where my wonderful mouth used to be

'dig it up, and throw it at me
dig it up, and throw it at me'...

(from the loss album and Shepherd's Notes blog)

where can I run to?
where can I hide?
who will I turn to,
now I'm in a virgin state of mind?

(from the loss album; the Pandora marble sculpture by John Gibson, circa 1860, in  the Victoria and Albert Museum in London; adapted from the image in Christine Grabig's Flickr album. All Rights Reserved)

got a knife to disengage
the voids that I can't bear,
to cut out words I've got written,
on my chair, like:

'do you think I'm sexy?
'do you think I really care?

'can I burn the mazes I grow?
'can I? I don't think so.'

(from the loss album; adapted from image seen in the Triumph of the Spirit blog)

where can I run to?
where can I hide?
who will I turn to,
now I'm in a virgin state of mind?

'can I burn the mazes I grow?
'can I? I don't think so.'

(from the loss album; bronze statue of a mourner in Greenwood Cemetery; picture adapted from original taken by Brecht Bug. All Rights Reserved.)

where can I run to?
where can I hide?
who will I turn to,
now I'm in a virgin state of mind?
a virgin state of mind
a virgin state of mind
a virgin state of mind...

(Song is "Virgin State of Mind" from K's Choice.)

that's my heart that's breaking, down this long-distance line tonight

(from the loss album; butterflies in the dark at Alirium Gardens)

When we two parted
In silence and tears,
Half broken-hearted
To sever for years,

It hasn't been years; not yet, at least. But time stretches, time distorts, and each hour creeps by, wounded. Every breath in etches new pain on my worrying mind. I am lost, straitlaced into desperation, and seeking a way out that never arrives.

(from the loss album; awash in light in the cinema at Boof's Hoi Polloi branch)

Pale grew thy cheek and cold,
Colder thy kiss;
Truly that hour foretold
Sorrow to this.

And I reach out, I keep reaching out, to hear static and absence in return. So much self-doubt at this point, my mind whites out with the force of it. Muscle fatigue is setting in from the reaching, towards the hand that is never, ever there.

(from the loss album; underneath the Forgotten City)

The dew of the morning
Sunk chill on my brow--
It felt like the warning
Of what I feel now.

I have thrown myself back into searching for items I don't need, and writing about discoveries anyone else could have made; I have buried myself in hunt entries this week, to the point where the entries won't stop publishing for four more days. I am seeking out controversies for diversion, not for reasons of indignation or enlightenment. I am scattered; I have lost focus. Comprehension of this fact does not alter the feeling, however.

(from the loss album; at Swine & Roses in the Point of Derivation)

Thy vows are all broken,
And light is thy fame;
I hear thy name spoken,
And share in its shame.

I defer all choices to save myself from struggle and pain; then I fight to take them back, because without my choices I am a nonentity. And I wander. I wander. I wander. Trying to make sense of myself, trying to make sense of the situation. Failing. Trying to ask myself the right questions, and listening for the answers. Failing. Trying to be patient, to wait, to endure, to calmly hope for news.

Failing.

(from the loss album; crouching in the Village of Nyght's kirkyard)

They name thee before me,
A knell to mine ear;
A shudder comes o'er me--
Why wert thou so dear?

And I try to answer the unanswerables. What if I. Or should I go do. Or Does it even matter if I. And because the questions behind the questions worry me more than the potential answers, I seek diversion, but shy away from actual interaction. Would it be better or worse, even for a moment? How am I to know unless I try? But it doesn't seem to matter. Endless searching for something I know I cannot find. Fear of the end of the journey, regardless of what that ending means.

(from the loss album; resting in the Noweeta Grassland)

They know not I knew thee,
Who knew thee too well:--
Long, long shall I rue thee,
Too deeply to tell.

I toss and turn, I find it difficult to sleep. I push sleep off as long as possible, because I know I will be more rested from passing out insensate, than by going to bed at a reasonable hour and startling awake every few minutes, fearful of any noise that might mean revelation. Last night, I woke, and watched the wall push out beside the bed, adorned with several small, red-jeweled eyes. I suppose it could be worse--the last time, it was malformed spiders in clusters--but it doesn't bespeak good things for my mental state.

(from the loss album; in the dwarven caves at Folkvang

In secret we met--
In silence I grieve
That thy heart could forget,
Thy spirit deceive.

Is is not deception if there was legitimate need to leave for a time. But that time stretches, becomes a long road of its own, and I may not be strong enough to walk it to its end. And both sides of that conclusion could harm, at present, and it is wholly beyond my control how I react, because I have also fought hard to feel, to express, to leave behind the bottled self in the attic and leave the gates of my heart open--if not wide, still open, enough for loves at least to get in and call out.

Yesterday, I was named "pretty" and instinctively rejected it. Horns, faun ears, hooves, skin whiter than bleached stone. I did not want the compliments, I did not want to consider the ramifications. Today, I wander with consumptive eyes and a wound over my heart, and I want someone to tell me it does not matter. Both wants are immaterial, and specious. But the need for validation--inner or outer--is rising fast and hard.

(from the loss album; looking at the goddess reliquary at Spirit)

If I should meet thee
After long years,
How should I greet thee?--
With silence and tears.

I have a jewel of great worth, found in excavations of the past. I treasure it, and I hold it close, but I cannot bring myself to use its power. At least...not yet. I hold it to me, letting its knowledge comfort pain, but...am I able to employ its solution? Will it be the correct action, or the absolute wrong thing to do? Why is nothing more clear?

(from Lord George Gordon Byron, "When We Two Parted".)

(One additional note:

[6:05] jxxxxxx: thank you for your donation at the Help Hub, this makes us feel useful (first tip ever yay) - good luck with everything.

(When setting up pictures for this entry, I did a general search for "loss" to start off with. This led me to Shalom: the Help Hub, which is pretty much a small parcel on a mainland estate in Nessus. But it's a good jumping-off point for information on a variety of life pain, from psychological to physical, and the things in between. I realized fairly quickly I wanted a more realistic, larger terrain for photographs, but I did tip them before I left because I thought they were doing a good job. It's worth a visit, at least, if you're in need of something, whatever that might be.)