It's yours to gain
To play, to sunder, to lose
It's your eyes to choose
Is it time?  And for who?
Part one, or part two?
Is it me?  Or you?

*(This is where it gets really really really really fucking dangerous. It's fine.)

Try to go back
And take 'em all down
You got a million and one
Places to call your hometown
Call 'em all down
You will rest here tonight
You got a lot on your mind
You got a lot in your sights
Tonight

Shit.

Can I afford to let everything we found that night bleed till it's dead? Oh yeah, that one night you took me home, can I sit quietly and watch it come to that? For all the lines that were crossed, all was done and said, we're gonna let it bleed between the chalk lines in the place it was last seen??

It's not what she said. It's not how she said it. It's actually both.
"I've never felt like this before."
Such agony, such pain in that voice. Letting itself crack between coughs as it groaned its way to sleep.
Shit...

We talked about the night you first told me about your scars. I saw those scars for the first time a couple hours later. That was you? You, of all people, the audacity to do this to yourself? Fucking angel, nipple rung, tattooed, blankth generation small town exile broken as shit bottom of a bottle fucking Aphrodite.

You were eighty percent angel
Ten percent demon
The rest was hard to explain

"I never ever ever want you to feel like that."

Did it really have to be me, or could it have just been anyone who doesn't fit? Why am I the one you choose to tolerate? Why am I fed? How do I deserve this? You are nothing but a cursed cynical asshat and yet you choose to ignore how much of your time I'm wasting. Why are you so into me?

Why were we so much more honest about the way we felt when we were drinking? Why did we let it fall back to mind games, time-tables, fencing? I liked us when we could openly admit to pushing buttons, making measurements, carefully dipping toes into the water, and live to tell about it. We were scared. Or at least nervous. It felt good to know that. It felt good to say that. I feel betrayed.

So don't hate me just because I want to see you. Tonight. I will not lie, you are fucking delicious. I've got two more weeks before I leave, and I swear they're yours if you want them. Don't tell me you're ashamed? Don't tell me you're embarrassed? Don't tell me you're afraid? Don't tell me you're putting first things first? Actually yeah, please, tell me one of those things. One of those things first. Before I start thinking about it. Because I know I've done my time. I've earned the right to have you, if I want you. Maybe they're right, maybe I only want you cause I can't have you. But that doesn't make a difference. I know I have a right to fall on my own sword tonight. Maybe I am going way too far, but hey, we won't even pretend you scarred me more than I scarred you. Not in the long run anyway. You're the one who's playing so close to your chest. You're the one who got pushed.

You got kicked
You know why too. I'LL kick you if I even feel like it.
I can kick you...
There's a needlessly large guardrail on some given floor of a parking garage. There's a sunset, there's discussion of things, of mind alteration, writing, (hehe), cigarettes and the working week.
"You know, I can't believe I'm guilty of this, but you know what about the cruelest thing you can do to just about anybody is? Especially girls? You know that thing they do when they push you away? When they expect you to chase them? Don't chase them."
Fuckin you don't even know what a kick is...

What's the point in all this screaming
You're not listening anyway

I will never for the rest of my life forget that carnage. I almost bailed, jumped a train to nowhere that morning. Like I said, Leaving. It's just as good. I don't think it would've hurt you too bad. You'd have lost a friend more than a chance, I hate it, I hate it.

Breakfast was good. It was good that I could still feel you. It was good I could still feel you wriggle yourself closer long after water tasted like puke, the word alcohol called upon gales of fish guts and bathroom floors and where the fuck did I leave my purse. You cared. Even when you were given the choice. That's gotta be worth something.

Yeah, she said something you would expect. Something about putting up a bunch of fronts, I'd called her out again about keeping her guard up.
"It's okay, you know why? Cause I'm waking up next to you."
I kinda wish I hadn't said that. I don't know why, not much consequence, I'm just not proud of it.
"Please don't cry."
If I do it's your fault, woman...
"You have to tell me you're a good person. You give a damn, I know that. Say okay."
"Okay."
Okay.

Speaking of ego. You took the moment where my tongue and your tongue finally found a home together to ask me, through the most arrogant laughter I've ever heard.

"What exactly do you think you're proving?"
I'm not trying to prove anything, I said dispel. And that's what I meant.
"I'm not trying to prove anything, I said dispel."

That's okay. The shoe dropped. Finally. One down, one to go.

There is still a parking garage. There is an embrace.
"Thank you. For letting me be myself."
"haha, no problem. God knows I've got no right to judge you."
"And God knows you have nothing to hide, either."
I left you at that same parking garage after the war. Many weeks later, weeks of twisting, yanking chains and playing games and measuring each other up.
Just an embrace. Nothing impersonal or misleading, no more complicated, no more stupid, I am full. Haven't seen you since.

Just an embrace.

Of course I've known you long before I met you. Yeah, you're special alright, but you're nothing I haven't seen before. You know how people have desert island albums right? You're a desert island person. I would choose you. But I've seen you in other people, and I know I'll see you again. Basically most of you all the same handful of people recycled over and over again as I float downstream. But you. You're different now. You've been chosen now. This little piggie got branded. This little piggie knows it's mine. But for all the nipple rings and tattoos and hair and hands and fingers that might get lost from point A to point B I threw you something you can't get rid of. I got it on your soul, and everywhere else you could possibly be hiding. It's like I threw herpes on your soul bitch, you got that shit fo' EVA. Sorry. I didn't mean to call you that. You'll get me back some day.

You don't even remember off the top of your head? Those lines I was tracing on your back with my fingers? Soft as melted butter, soft as chalk? Yeah, I know you were still fucked up, you probably couldn't work out the letters in your mind or you didn't care to, but I know you were there. I know you could tell, not sure if you could feel it, per se. But I gave you something I can always see no matter what you do, and if my mind lets me forget then my fingers sure won't. And if you wanna know you'll have to come here to find it. Good luck.

No one
No way
- CW

Yeah, I was a little surprised, I guess that's normal. Given the circumstances you never know quite what to expect from the morning after, especially when liquid courage is involved. Where are we? What shame have you? What would we have done and said differently if we hadn't been so goddamn lonely? I'm glad you could still find me. I'm glad you could still wriggle up next to me. Touch me. Through the carnage, rebirth, dizzyspells, cornbread, the whole 9 dude.

"Hey,"
"mm?"
"Thank you. For letting me be myself. Again.
I feel like, as I'm getting older, as I'm coming to terms with realities like yes, I have a real problem with depression and yes, alcoholism is just kind of buying and borrowing time, as I'm realizing how hard this is going to be as a frustrated artist and what I have to give to the world and what I have to create, for all I was meant to disrupt and change, so many people out there genuinely fucking HATE what I have to say. And ten times that many people just don't give a damn. And it's gonna be really cold and really hard for me to get from one island to another.
And it's good to find people like you."
You just squeezed. That's all. Pretty good call, actually.

That's gotta be worth something. Is it not enough? How could I take more than I need? Why do I need to kick you? Why do I need to taste your shoulder again so badly? Why can't I accept it as some beautiful night of soulful filling and--and just take it with me? I found you, damn you. I know how to find you again if I need to. I found someone who cares, in spite of. I found someone who gives me the breath to be the person I'm best at being. Why would I let that miracle of humanism turn to greed, unacknowledgement, and waste? Why would I be so desperate to fall on my own sword?

Tonight

∞∞∞|
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(Set)

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