She leaned against the wall, pressing her forearm flat, and holding one palm outstretched, gripping the wall for balance. Snap! She shivered, and felt the tail of a dragon bite her left hip. She didn't have time to regain her composure, Snap!, before it bit her again, just barely breaking a line of skin across her ass cheek. A mark would only show up less than an inch long, but she felt more like 8 inches of contact. She whimpered, trying to stay upright, shifting the balance of her weight to one foot as her other knee buckled from under her. Oh, it turned her on; she moaned as much from being turned on as from the sting of the...Snap! Her shoulder burned as the stinger lashed across her flesh there. Oh God, she pressed into the wall, waiting for it to come again, a hundred shooting stars leaving burning trails of cosmic fire across her pale skin.

He said not to look, to keep her eyes shut and face away, but she glanced over her shoulder and back at him anyway. She shouldn't have. It was scary to see him, his weapons spread out in array before him; his stance as he prepared to lash her again, the calculating look he had in his eye, as he chose the next patch of unwelted skin to mark bitingly, as his. She kept her chin up and met his eyes, his eyes bore into her, but she refused to give. Somewhere, there was this one strand of her that burned more brightly than all the others, and it would not let her drop her gaze. He challenged her, and she took little joy in her slight but existent win. He drew his arm back, and she snapped her face back toward the wall. But she hadn't lost.

Bruises had begun to form under welts, and he admired them; enjoyed going over every inch of her flayed body, running his fingers across her tender flesh, pointing out this one and that; his love marks left as territorial visualistic memories. He kissed her deeply, roughly, bit her. She melted into him and he bit her jaw, held her still, his hand in her hair, and bit her harder, simply because she was his to bite. For the next week she wouldnt be able to rest her chin in her hand without getting wet over the thought of him.

The welts and bruises would remind her of him for weeks to come. She wouldn't sit, lie down to sleep, shower, or dress without inhaling the him that he left imprinted on her with his whips and crops. Deer hide, bison hide, bovine... She couldn't remember which was which or their proper names... They were all like a dragon whispering fire across her thighs, calves, hips, ass, and shoulders. Her tummy hadn't been spared, and the inside of her thigh was raw. It made her wet, trying to describe the beauty in the purple of her flayed skin. Every mark was empowering, each raised welt proof in the height of her exstasy, and his.

Well, then, make me yours she had said to him defiantly, petulently. And so he had; though it may not have been his intent. She would be wraped in his breath, his fire, his power, for weeks to come. She would be wrapped in the lashes of her lover, welted by his passion, bruised by his desire, cut by his blade and burned by his fire. Ultimately, she would be his, he had made sure of that years ago, and she had come back, as free as his slave could be. She had come back to revel in the cosmic fire of dragons breath, and it whispers across tenderness. She had come back to him.  

I think of him, weathered hands, strong from long days of working hard...Tired eyes, because he rises before the sun; and stares at it too long.

I think of him, wanting to show me his world, teaching me to be patient, to be calm, to wait for him. He is catching stars for me, and I think of him giving me the moon.

I think of him, his resonating words touching my soul long after they've been spoken, reminding me of his gaze unyielding as we struggle to determine who fits where.

I think of him and wait for him and hope for him that the ends of his previous ordeals will be put right, and then he will have time for me, that we might come closer together...

I think of him, and my heart beats for him;

I think of him--and I can think of no other.

[Note: this will undoubtedly mean very little to those of you in this world who do not recognize this "holiday" which is the one of the unfortunate side effects of an unabashed capitalistic society. However, if you like to break things, read on]

So, you've finally had enough, and you want to take action, but you are at a loss as of what kind of action to take. In a stroke of rare generosity, I have compiled a list of things you can do to make February 14 a tolerable, and even perhaps enjoyable, day for those of who refuse to be enslaved by commercialism.

1. Firebomb all the Hallmark card shops you can find. The greeting card industry created this "holiday" and the most effective way of ridding ourselves of it is to destroy it at the source. Greeting card shops sell primarily paper goods, and will burn quite efficiently.

2. Gather a large amount of sympathetic malcontents together and declare February 14 as a Day of Hate. Ridicule those who are less fortunate than you, refuel old ethnic hatred while encouraging the hate that already exists, explode an advertising binge of misanthropy. Be sure to be extremely vocal so as to get the attention of the media. Break lots of things with reckless abandon. Carry placards with catchy hateful slogans, such as "Hate Is Great", "Have You Exploited Someone Today?" and "#### Love". Hit the malls and be sure to torch all the greeting card shops {see (1)}. This will have the positive side effect of destroying the malls where today's vacuous youth, extremely vulnerable to advertising, run rampant like a bad case of hives.

3. Upon coming in contact with aforementioned amourous starry-eyed couples, proceed to exclaim loudly to either one, "Why didn't you call me! You told me our passionate night together was only the beginning?! Who the hell is *this* cretin? Don't you know that s/he could never love you like I can?! You're coming with *me*!" Etc., ad nauseum. Be very animated, and feel free to physically get in between these two clueless sots. To be especially effective, do your research ahead of time and seek out certian couples. Learn their names, their habits and lifestyles, and capitalize on this. By ruining their holiday of love together, you will be adding them to the ranks of bitter V.D. malcontents.

You get the picture. Refuse to be passive! Join the ranks of the angry, the bitter, the angstful, and smash this day into oblivion. You'll thank me for it in the end, I guarantee.

(I didn't write this...don't know who did. I read it a few years ago, edited it to better suit me, and made it my Valentine's Day mantra... Props to it's original creator.)

I am too exausted for a cleverly written sonnet. I am nearly too drained for sitting up, let alone disguising gritty details in eloquent verbage.

Tuesdays I work late. I do a nine hour day. It means I can do a 7 hour day on Friday, which makes me happy. Fraidays are my best days, my favorite days. I like them because the work of the week is done, but there is not yet cause for begining the work of the weekend. It's a play night, a bonus evening given to transition into weekend. Friday. *pleasant sigh*

I began moving into my new place last weekend. I have a coworker that I have just fallen entirely in love with. She's young and vibrant and not weathered by the winds of life yet. She's bright and buddhist. She's my new best friend, almost instantly, and it's a done deal. She's been helping me move. We went out to the bars together, we went shopping together. It's been a really long time since I met a girl I like as much as I like her. It's really nice to have someone close to hang out with. She looking forward to doing her laundry at my house--so she doesn't have to use her apartment laundry mat. I'm looking forward to it, too! 

My neighbor is my maintenance man. He's also an english prof at the university, and my co-worker's advisor. (Seems like a big coincedence, but it isn't, really, it's just a small town.) He winked at me so many times I asked my friend if he had a winking "thing." She swears she's never seen him wink in her life till then, and that he is not afflicted by turret's. How cute. He's very friendly and we'll get along well. Friend wanted to try to set us up--but I pointed out that it'd be really dumb to date your neighbor...A break up could mean a move?! Ugh! I'll pass.

Jaden wants me to reaffirm a commitment to monogamy, though I've not seen him since before Christmas, the time before that was two months prior. We're 8 hours apart. I tried to explain about women in their early 30s being like teenage boys, hormonally, but he tried to talk me out of it rationally. Seriously? No matter how logical my spock-ian lover might be, one simply can not talk a woman out of hormones that are being released into her body even this moment, as she sits typing.

Yes, yes, I know it's not love, just an expression thereof, I understand it's not what makes me important or valuable, and that there is much deeper fabric that binds two people. I just don't care right now; I want sex. And I want it more often than once a month... A lot more often. I tried to tell him, I wonder if he listened. I was honest, without being hurtful. I acknowledged that I am behaving as if I am single. We discussed options, if we'll see each other again or not. It was tabled for now. I don't like burning bridges, and everything he said to me felt loaded. Besides, he was so drunk I didn't figure it mattered what I said.

Fires are burning, and there's just way too much life to be lived. I don't want anyone to get burned because I burn. I can't stop burning. I love, and I live, and I need and I seek. That's all, it just is. I just am. I am honest, though, and although I attempt to cause as little pain as possible; I do cause it. In Jaden's case, I feel justified, somehow, perhaps because of the long months I've spent in dreadfully sorrowful states over his absence; and I can not help our situation. It is in the hands of the fates, whether we will meet again. I don't want to think about it anymore.

My ferocious is distant, but doesn't hold me so far from himself that I can't bear it. I would probably be a wreck if it weren't for his acceptance of me. I have been lost. He is reassuring. He is comforting. He is enchanting, even in his mourning. He thinks of me, and attends me when I require it. With all the moving I'm doing, it's really not a bad time for him to be busy, also. I adore him, I miss him. I ache for a time when both of our lives can slow down and meld a bit. But I can wait for it. I'm patient. Sometimes. On this matter, I believe I have eternal patience. I will fill my time with other things, until he comes to fill it for me.

My Starscatterer. Makes my heart beat forgotten rhythms, my breath keeping time. My mind is engaged and my tongue twisted. I am shocked, and not. Feeling like I'm a beautiful dancer at an elegant ball. I know I only look good because he leads me; I don't really know the dance, but it matters not, because he knows it well enough for the both of us, and I follow well. The sky tonight is so bright, the stars are over-pronounced, if that's possible! My Starscatterer gathers them. He's always done so, and I suspect he always will. I miss him, in a something from very long ago kind of way, and feel the tension growing. There's a story here, a solid entwined and interconnected love story, a deep sweet fairy tale, and I mean to write a part of it...Live a part of it.

Tonight I've stolen a star, and I've got it in my pocket. I'm taking it to bed with me, and waiting to see if it's owner comes to claim it. Tonight, Orion and I sleep with a stolen star.

Her language is lacking and incomplete, the thoughts she desperately attempts to put phrase to muted, quieted, and left unformed in between the word given to an idea and the speaking of it.

She gives up at eloquence and simply whispers,    "Come closer, you, I wish for more."

He turns from her, looks away and closes his eyes to her; he holds himself away from her, in the safely distant and foggy softness of the memory of her, saving him from the hotly glowing burning of her.

He refuses to see the brightness of them as a thing that they share; for his fear of the darkness when the burning ceases, fire turning to ash and tear. He gives her away, trades the possibilities of her for the fuzzy memory of what might have been, of what had been in times before. He refuses to see her, and her tears burn as they fall in scores.

From the dark she whispers, "Come closer, you, I wish for more."

He whispers answers to her, drawing her into him; his gaze, his language, his phrase. His whispers command her breath, the beating of her heart, her thoughts and daydreams. He seeks to find her, to tend her and keep her as his--merge with her once again, burn with her, souls entwined. He comes to her to claim her, atavisticly blending his flame with hers, that neither ends nor begins of its own accord.

Faintly, she whispers, "Yes. Come closer, you, I wish for more."

Words do not give meaning to the ache of love lost, love missing, love separated or past. Words do not speak the language of the pain in the fear of heartbreak, the impossibility and improbability of the necessity of breathing a next breath.

It is much she would ask of him, she knows not that he will relinquish it to her. She has no words for promises or conditions. She has no wonder for the what will happen next. She is not bothered with the details of possible ache of heart... It, to her, is just another state. In a fairy tale world, he would not deny her.

Sometimes, he whispers of promises she can't bear to believe, for the fear of the unfufilment of them. Sometimes he speaks aloud his intent to be one with her again. Sometimes she believes him, and her heart is warm and her flame burns brightly, longing for the touching of him.

But always she wonders, is this the dream or the waking?

"Oh please," she begs in a desperate whisper, "Come closer, you?"