I remember you.
Naming you would give you power, so I don't. I just call you by an old nickname, or another name I've invented just for you. It keeps me safe from you.
Speak of the devil, you know. And I have no wish for you to appear.
You're an old wound, now. Lots of scar tissue there, a little bit of stretching since the places that scarred over are places that need to bed, eventually. Places that need to open up again, places that love's never reached but pain has.
You saw me first. You said I was posed as if the whole world was mine, as if I were in truth a falcon about to swoop down on my prey. you said I was imperious and flinty and you fell in love with me then and there.
The truth is, it was bright out and I wasn't sure what the car looked like. I was learning against the street sign because there wasn't anywhere to sit without getting soaked. I was nineteen and I was scared. Scared that someone was going to eventually see through my cover. I wasn't imperious and I was in no way wise. I'd spent years and years preparing to be a hermit and had no idea what to do when someone looked at me and told me I was pretty or interesting or whatever.
Except acquiesce because it was flattering and I liked being flattered.
I don't think of you very much any more. And when I think of you now, it is invariably distant memories that come to the fore. i'm no longer that scared girl, I'm no longer the woman you loved and couldn't help trying to mold into the image you had in your mind of me.
I speak of the devil and hope he doesn't hear.
I was poised somewhere between slut and goddess, i channeled things of immense power for you, I was an (un)willing participant in your mythology, the mythology that swallowed me whole and ate me alive. You were a valuable experience because now i know that if I am ever given a chance to star in someone else's mythology, i will turn it down flat.
You were part of a life I don't live any more, a chapter of a book that I only occasionally pull down from the shelf. I don't like remembering you. You were part of my private drama and the role you played was not flattering.
I could have loved you. I think I might have, in between the bloody nights and the rescues by friends.
I speak of the devil and know he can't hear.
I'm closing this book again. Quietly. And walking away.
I'm busy putting together a new NetBSD box for madstop.org. It's pretty much done, except for some fiddling with ftpd settings, some DNS stuff, and setting up timed. Those latter two need to happen when I actually put the box in place, out at the co-op where the current machine is co located.
The new machine, named Escher for the moment, has a definite personality. A definite feel. Likes packages, a lot. Not so sure about Mailman, and SSH doesn't agree with it too much. But we're coming to an understanding.
Is this a girl thing? Assigning personalities to inanimate objects? My car is named Desdemona, my main NT machine is named Bach, the stereo is named Credenza (no, I have no idea why, i just like the word) and the house is named Madstop. [Madstop Mark II, if I must be so formal.]
I have my fingers in the guts of this machine, I'm changing things about how it's working by tapping little commands in at the prompt. Not naming it would be like doing surgery without knowing who i was operating on.
Okay, I'm bizarre. I know. I hereby turn in my Normal Hat. If I can find it. i think it fell behind the dresser.
how goes the war?
Armistice, for the moment.
