Something for you

It is the middle of the night, quite literally, and I have been laying here awake and staring at the ceiling. Everything takes on a more severe degree of importance in the middle of the night when you can't sleep.

I thought for a while about going back to sleep, then I thought about how it is as close to morning as it is to last night, then I wondered if I should just get a jump on the new day and make coffee now?

Mainly though, I thought about you.

I did get up and make a little foot tour of the grounds in my flip-flops. The new clean areas were visited, the MFFDD was admired, then reviled. The vacuum of some other vehicle's absence was felt. I Stood in that corner in the dark and spun around once or twice and then felt lucky, I don't care how it sounds, and I can't tell you how it is calculated or reconciled, but I am the lucky one.

I have had an image lately about a person living with a Rattlesnake. It is possible for a person to do that, to have feelings for the thing, to look at it and think that it likes or even loves you. I'm sure you don't require me to explain any more about this metaphor. Analogy? I always forget which is which, and it is late. Early.

Two Rattlesnakes? What if there are two? They must be able to live with each other. Do they? Does one always worry in the back of it;s mind if or when the other is going to suddenly turn?

Speaking of 'similar', when you get those far away looks and a worried expression on your face seemingly out of nowhere, and when pressed for information and you say 'nothing', I know what it is about. I know what it is about because I have either seen it before, or I am thinking the same thing. More probably I am thinking the same thing. I think we are the same.

When things are going well, or feel great, instead of remaining there and enjoying it, our minds drift forward in time to the point in which we imagine it is going to fall apart for some reason. When we are looking at each other, up close and noses touching and breath moist and mingling, and you look away slightly, I am thinking the same thing but trying to control my urge to look away slightly, but we are wondering who is going to strike first. Should we say it? Should we trust that we don't want to destroy this? Or, is a pre-emptive strike the best policy in this situation? Talk about Mexican Standoff.

I look at you and see you pull the pin and throw a grenade under the bus.

I wonder if I should go try to pick it up and throw it away, or if I should just stand there and do nothing and hope it does not go off - maybe it was a rubber gag grenade, or wish I would have thrown the grenade first, of if I should make a sacrifice and lay down on top of it, and I wonder if you didn't do it first, would I have? Do we not want to really be happy? Is this FUN? Do we have no control? I look at you and you look at me and there is a happiness, and soon after there is a panic and we are reaching around us, still smiling, looking for our grenades, our EMERGENCY FEATURE, the red button or lever, the self-destruct switch. We are pushing or pulling at it with one hand, behind our backs, while our other hand is touching the other person's face to distract them, or truly enjoying the sensation for what we worry may be the last time.

Enough about that. It is late, or early, and I guess I will have to take a pill after all to be able to sleep, it is important to get some more sleep before I have to try to act normal tomorrow. Act normal? I mean, function properly. I am getting things done. I don't want to stop now. Not yet.


Since we are the same, you could have told me anything and I would have understood. The only thing you could have done wrong was the thing you did: tell me I did something wrong and then disappear to let me worry and wonder and seep in guilt and not even give me the opportunity to speak or ask any questions, no explanations. Presumably no room in your schedule for discussion. Since we are the same, I know you know this was the worst possible move to have made. Since you did this on purpose, this makes you - cruel? - Is a venomous reptile cruel because it does what it does naturally? What feels 'right' to it? When it is taking care of itself? Are we reptiles though? Do we have no control over our impulses?


I could not trust you. I could not trust you now, and I only briefly trusted you then. It took over a month before my actual conscious active defenses went down at all and my hopes went up. I know you were aware of this, and it is probably why you chose that time to strike.

Dramatic Drivel? This? All you and never me, and rattlesnakes and turning and striking and parasites and virus and scars and middle-of-the-nights? SURE. Eleven? Somewhere between nine and eleven, I think that is where we exist. I don't think it makes any of this less true. If anyone should know this and recognize this, it would be you. If no-one else can appreciate it, you should be able to.

Could we ever be able to look at each other in that warm special way and not have to worry what the other person is thinking, and if we need to protect ourselves by blowing everything up in order to feel like we have control?

Very special, Special. Find a path.