birdmad_speaks_of_them birdmad self indulgent confessional moment: Elisa...best friend through the first three years of high school, realized after 2 years that i was in love with her, took a year to work up the nerve to tell her...she stopped talking to me for another 3 years when i finally did Debi and Donna...a friend introduced me to this odd couple after my confession to Elisa turned into an utter emotional debacle...together we were neither holy or wholesome, but for a time we were a happy little trinity unto ourselves... ...a brief period of one-night stands Tania...met her in college a few months later, brief interlude when her cheating psychotic fiance wigged out after discovering she was paying her tuition as an exotic dancer...an otherwise minor traffic accident caused her to miscarry the child that neither of us new she was carrying...ostensibly mine Brenda...part of the same circle of friends as Elisa...calls me out of the blue just weeks after Tania leaves...i had always thought her pretty and sweet and all kinds of nice, and was surprised by her return from a year and a half in California...i wasted less time in expressing what i felt once i was sure, but this time i was too late, she was in the process of reconciling with the one who had been her "significant other" and so she went back to him not long after i said the infamous three_words two years of one-night stands... Tiffiney, the strangest two years of my life, we were like each other's evil twins...funny that my best relationship was a strange, celibate, but sometimes flirtatious symbiosis with a lesbian... more later... 000430 ... birdmad ...drifting for a while, a death in the family (Bye, mom...)...Tiffiney drifts away... the feeling of a shift in priorities...new friends and they both need a new environment, i take on boarders...(who knew what bastards they'd turn out to be?) J...,solitary and none too social, but seemingly not a bad sort... and D., not unlike the person i was near the middle of the story...the introduction of Samantha and my strange but impartial role as the chauffeur in their relationship coupled with the incubation of a secret envy...his need to cast judgements on those who had not lived the same life as he and the friction it created between them, my misguided attempts to keep them together when all woould have been better served if i had been the opportunist i used to be... the private conversations and a semblance of trust gained, ...a moment of youthful rebellion and a jar of red hair dye, an addiction born the moment i ran my fingers through her hair for the first time, the sudden, unexplained (yet unfulfilled) desire to kiss the smooth white neck as i moved away the newly coloured hair from her collar... a desire left unexpressed in attempt to salvage a rapidly devalued friendship with one who i treated as a brother... the further devaluation brought on by a phone call on a february evening as i went to fetch Samantha...the return of a dirty little secret into Damian's sphere of influence...The seemingly convenient arrival of the trailer_park_sorceress, my wrongfully transferred desires and the trouble that she wrought in her wake, beautiful, dirty, innocent and yet nearly as depraved and debauched as i had been, a game of manipulation...his betrayal of Samantha for the trailer-witch. two months of mindgames, cheap, low-grade weed, a descent into hell, my inner demons dredged to the surface, afraid to face Samantha for fear of being held to blame, too busy in confusion and cowardice when a better friend would have offered some comfort (i'm sorry)...the rat in and out of the cage, the stolen books, the arrival late one evening to hear the sounds from the bedroom and the bite of the razorblade as i drunkenly dragged it down from my hairline, skipping the eye and down from my cheekbone to my chin, the king of swords overshadowed by the three of the same suit, the prince of swords, inconstant prick, the change of mind that would send the high priestess back to her trailer park throne and witness Samantha's return, her apparent willingness to give the insect a second chance. the eviction of the insect, the trust broken. the sacking of the house as he ran like a cockroach from the light, the ritual and the bag of cursed ashes sewn into the lining of his coat six months of silence and the loss of all things, the home forsaken for its taunting echoes growing louder with each passing day... a refuge found among other friends a one-night tryst with a beauty who harbored a blade fetish and carved ornate designs into my chest with a scalpel, the realization that pleasure without true passion was no longer worthwhile News that her forgiveness of the insect was short-lived and the re-emergence of hope, tempered with the insect's allegations that she had become a junkie (lying bastard) ... Meeting her again for the first time one late september evening, an embrace to mark the start of a new friendship...the night on the hill, stoned and laughing and watching the stars, it would take only a short time to know i was in love ( i already knew from that january evening...the dye job) October and painting our faces in skeleton greasepaint smiles November and three_words spoken but gently refused, continuing on as friends.the willingness to not press the issue for the sake of preserving what was there the secret kept from me that the reason for refusal was other than what i was told the holidays and a sudden distance, the first tendrils of a lie taking root, displaced, de-jobbed, and in the grip of encroaching poverty, distance becomes estrangement,two weeks without sleep followed by four more, my saviours growing to resent me in my despair, my only solace; Mariko, a voice in this digital ether and time spent swimming in the contents of stolen bottles until the silence is broken on a clear spring afternoon, just when i was on the verge of running to join my bloodline down on the gulf a reunion and a confession, her explanation for the long cold silence drawing closer, the issue of love raised once more after a brief period of reacquiantance an answer not given in words, but in the seeming acceptance of various gradually escalating displays of affection, an answer given in the plans she wanted to make (like a weekend up in Monterey or down in Rocky Point) The lie in full blossom as she allowed my advances, appearing to enjoy the sensation and attention, only to pull away from me without warning as if i had attempted to push further than she was willing to permit...her accusation that i was toying with her emotions, when, in retrospectm the opposite wsa true. a lie of my own takes root as i surreptitiously exchange lewd correspondence and expressions of my unrequited longing with a faraway friend, who remains a good friend and confidant to this day the scene changes again the last evening together, a gift and a letter, what seems to be the beginning of something new turns out to be the the onset of the end, just when it seemed as if i had gotten past her mostly unwarranted distrust (i make no bones about being inherently corrupt and expect no one to trust me COMPLETELY) she walks away, damning me with faint praise and leaving me to believe that my only purpose in her life was to give her the satisfaction of inflicting the same kind of betrayal and abandonment that she had been put through by Damian and the other bastard she was seeing at the same time as myself and the really sick part of it all is that, for some strange reason, eleven months later, i would gladly endure it all again for the sake of being near her again but knowing that she'll never be mine, the only thing left that i want is to know "why"? 000430 what's it to you? who go blather from