Downshift to animal mind.
Teeth bared,
Eyes rolling,
Hips sway.

Come and get it.

Sisyphus

I'm riding that edge right now.

Sometimes it's bad, sometimes it's worse, and sometimes I get distracted long enough to forget, stop paying attention to ye olde brainbox.

It's when I'm like this I have a hard time being around people I know. All I want to do is curl up in my room and write, bleed it out. And when I can no longer stare at the monitor, my eyes aching, I want a man without language to exhaust me for the evening, so my mind and body will match and I can sleep. I don't want to have to say anything, I've drained my soul of words and I want him to understand that anything else that comes out of me will be the bases bits of gravel, worthless and forever caught in the cracks.

Two weeks of this, off and on. No excuses, no reasons. I go out in public and I feel like my edges are cracking. I'm in no danger of losing it, just slightly out of my head for now. I would go out on Friday and sweat it out of my system on the dance floor, but instead of being able to dance myself, I will be at a show, watching others dance.

It seems unfair.

Maybe I'll go out Thursday instead.

Maybe.

I thought that you might be interested in hearing what it is like for us. You know, the girls lying in your bed, sometimes nameless, the ones that you use to dull the edge, when riding it gets too rough, desperately seeking that resonating echo in someone else, always failing to find it, being misled at times, half spurred on by their lies, half spurred on by your driving need to just not be alone for once.

He calls me.

He's riding that edge. He's out of his head with words and feelings and he needs, oh god he needs, the flesh to put him back inside of himself. He needs skin, my skin, tonight.

So I go to him.

I follow his instructions. Door is unlocked, join him in bed, no words needed.

I drop to my knees, he opens his arms, and I fall into them. He knows my name, he whispers it, but I know that to part of him, the size of which I do not guess at, I'm just another one. Another person to dive into, another person to bring him back from his madness. When he can't take the words that are pounding out of his brain, pounding onto his keyboard, he calls.

Whatever he needs, I am there. I make no demands for myself. I'm not there for me, I'm there for him. I'm there because he's beautiful and glorious, he's so damned damaged, and he understands the feeling of being so overwhelmed by the viscera inside, so overwhelmed that no matter how far we go, whatever we do, we can't escape.

He pumps into me, I moan his name. I clutch at his back, ankles locked behind him, and writhe, and wonder why he's the only person who understands this internal storm. He knows I understand, so he calls me. He knows that he can say two words to me and I will be there for him. He knows that weeks may pass with no contact and it does not matter to me, because just knowing that he exists, that someone exists who can understand this amazingly wonderful, unending torment, this tornado, this feeling of impending explosion... it is enough.

When we finish, he writes. He's kind enough to turn out the lights, leaving him hunched over his keyboard, draining his soul, his face uplit by the monitor. I watch him as I drift in and out of sleep, when I hear his breathing change I reach out and touch his ankle.

Come to bed.

We curl up, my chest pressing against his back, my nose against his hair, inhaling. I hold him until he sleeps, and then I sleep, lips against his skull.

In the morning, he's okay. He's back in his skin, the tightly restrained jumpiness, the tension, the beast... it is calm. He has used me for a breather, both of us coming up for air for one evening.

I leave him to his writing, usually after breakfast. I do not know when I will see him next, if I ever will again. I drive down Fairfax with this knowledge, with the scent of his skin in my hair and on my hands. Maybe in a week, maybe in two weeks, or even a month, he will call again. I do not know if he does this with others. With his demanding schedule, I doubt he has the time. When he calls me, my breath always catches.

I know he's using me. I also know he appreciates me, is glad of my company, is especially glad of my understanding. I ask nothing of him. He has too much pressure already. I do not know when he is going to go on the road, or for how long it will be, or even if he will remember me when he gets back.

It doesn't bother me.

It should. But it doesn't. No one will know what we have done. No one will know that as he was writing, I was the one he called when he was about to go under the waves.

It doesn't matter.

What matters is that he exists. Someone like him exists, and someone like him made the time, had the need, for someone like me. And that he knows that we're similiar creatures. Not the same, but in this world, we're close enough. I am not alone.

We burn separately, but we burn together.

So when you turn to your bed and see that shoulder sticking up, hair curled over it, please recognize me. You don't know my name, you don't know my face, but I serve a purpose.

I understand.

I center.

I make no demands.

I am here for you because of you, because of the beauty you create and the fire that lights you up. I ask nothing for myself, and when you are done with me, I will still be burning.

Forget

I finally accepted my life, and I thought you should know.

Driving up the coast, ocean on my left, cliffs on my right, the song on the radio telling me to forget. There were no bonfires tonight. Too cold, I suppose. Usually the beach is lit up with them, meteors plunged to earth. Star fall.

I follow the curve to a local, usually empty restaurant, and pick a table in the corner where I will remain undisturbed, except for the constant chatter of the television in the opposite corner. A dog show, of all things.

The waitress asks me what I would like to drink, and if I am expecting others.

No, I tell her, just me.

Before I even look at the menu, she asks me if I know what I want already.

Apparently she gets a lot of us, solitary diners, solitary people. And, yes, I already know what I want, without looking at the menu.

She knows too well this MO.

She leaves. I open my book. I read.

My drink arrives. I read.

And the song on the radio, now playing in my head, tells me to forget.

Forget what?

Forget that I am this solitary being? Forget the clamor of people, asking for help, asking for advice, validation, attention? Forget that I have never found a single social group that I could fit into, that those who I do not immediately connect with are either intimidated by me or find me aloof and detached? Forget the words of an ex, who, when we broke up, told me I was too intense, too overwhelming? That I would eat his life? Forget the people that look on me like some sort of trophy? Or the things I did to myself so such things would not bother me? Forget how many meals I have eaten alone, how many movie theaters I have sat in by myself, and the constant knowledge that this is my life? Forget how many miles upon miles of sidewalk and asphalt I have walked alone in exploration of the world and of the self?

So many evenings ending with me and a keyboard, fingers flowing, fingers dancing, exorcising my demons. Translating feelings into words.

I shed my skin.

People have expectations of me to always be strong. People think that I can take it all. What did he say to me? That he thought it would be okay to damage me for his own self-interest because he thought I was strong enough to take it? People are always so shocked when I become weak, even temporarily. It's like this idol has fallen, has turned human.

And then they reach to me. Reach for me. As if I could heal their damages, just because I have seen so many like them that I can predict their behavior because I've seen it before. That somehow my attentions will fix and validate them. That me choosing them means they're special in some way.

Sometimes men pour their hearts out to me in such a way... and I can do nothing. There's no connect. There's no words for them. And then others believe acting in a certain way will attract my attention, like I'm some typical girl who will fall for their games that I've seen a dozen times over and used against them.

When I slam them against the wall with words, they lash out in anger.

But they never get in my shell.

Their expectations, their memories, their hopes. I can walk into a room and know that those who ask who I am will hear a dozen different sordid stories of the things I have done, and some listeners will connect old tales with me. So that's the girl.

I walk inside myself. I walk detached from the world. I monitor each step, each sway, where my clothes cling, where my hands rest. I do not think about this any longer, I just do it naturally. They call me predatory. They say I'm one of the most predatory girls they've ever met, a shark gliding through waters. Silent and controlled. Never angry. And while constantly open, never connected.

I'm good at it.

They scoff when I tell them I think I'll be single forever. The constant stream of flesh through my life attests otherwise, as if any of those men could be the one in my head. As if any of them could have that strength and understanding, that they wouldn't be overwhelmed.

I accepted it, maybe not today, but it has been... acknowledged. I've nodded at my future, told it I would see it soon.

Alone but not lonely.

I thought you should know.