Know Thyself

~ "Do you remember asking me, on Saturday, if that's what it feels like for me, too?"

I smile, wryly. Saturday I'd slept all day. Wandered through frost dusted post apocalyptic south east train stations for an hour too long until frost bite took hold. Worn a skirt, goddammit, in subzero weather. Drank a bottle of ginsin and three other bottles of winelies. Had a drunken fit of max drama and high dudgeon at six am.
Done, said, inflicted many, many things. Including this.

~ "Yes."

~ "You never actually told me, what it feels like for you."

My wry smile turns to embarrassed smirk. Another stupid solecism, add to my weekend's collection. I turn away. Feel myself dozing, a little. I don't know the answer. I suspect I may never know the answer.
But it's a fair question. Something pulls me back to reality to consider it again. Leaning back, and moving my dank palm across a coolly dry shoulder, I try to verbalise.

~ "Sometimes it's really intense."

I shift my head, to stare up at the ceiling. I don't want to bulls**, but I don't want the question to force out any words that are less than true. Somehow at this moment there seems a gap between those two definitions. I close my eyes, wanting to look in, not out.

~ "Sometimes it hurts."

Again the feeling of wanting to move, to rearrange. Of being too self-contained to emote. I remind myself: it's a fair question. It's a very personal question - so tell the truth as best you know it. The compulsion to shy away from even wondering is overwhelming. I shift myself sideways to face him, but don't really catch his eye.

~ "And sometime's it's scary-weird."

That's it. That's the extent of all I know. Perhaps all I'll ever know in answer to this one. I drop my head down, too close for communication to continue, ready to drowse again. There's nothing more to be said about this, I feel. And I'm tired, sated, over-verbalised, satiated. He leans in toward me.

~ "I think you like it when it's like that."

I don't know: he could be wrong. He could very easily be right.