A few days ago I would have handed my heart on a silver platter to the first person who said the right words. I was a door, waiting to be opened... a box, full of... ehh. Never mind that particular analogy, I know where it leads and I don't like the road.

However, today.

Today there's this little prickle on the back of my neck when I walk. There's this feeling... hunger, only not. More so. Different, deeper, stronger.

Deb and co have gone to Rie's graduation party - it was planned, they/I thought, for this evening, however it turns out it was this MORNING instead, so they left in a rush and I, yes, stayed. Deb, as she headed out, reminded me that I've barely left the house since I came back from California. Wonder why?

And yes, today I DO wonder why. Today, now... I want to stalk. Prowl.

I want to go Out.

I want to Hunt.

Quick flashes of emotion... jealousy - Alex-my-love, did you know that I am insanely jealous of Armand? Lust, certainly - there's a boy with red-black-blond hair just a few hours away from here, a lithe, tight body, and a rough honeycomb voice. Physical hunger - it's That Time Again and so my body is craving red meat even more strongly than usual. Craving something else, too...

...I woke up this morning from a very... intense... dream to find my hands were covered in blood. And, having just woken up and not really being aware of anything but the tail end of the dream which had involved sex, and death, and quite a lot of incidental pleasing violence, I simply licked my hands clean and went back to sleep.

And that, it seems, has set the tone for the entire day.

It's been so long. Years, now. Years since I walked downtown freely, often, knowing names and recognizing faces, feeling as if I owned the shadows I passed through and the people I touched. I've grown lazy, weak. Huddled here on the outskirts of existance, clutching to pills and close friends in an effort to keep the pain at bay.

Here's a new thought. Fuck that. Forget hiding from the pain. Forget trying to ease it, to make it go away. Why not... celebrate? Why not do the things I used to, when it got bad?

Why not taste blood that's not my own, walk streets I can barely see through the red haze of hurt in my mind, run until I collapse and huddle against a building, half-hunter, half-prey, alive again for the first time in years?

That sounds...

...good.

Better than what I've been doing, at any rate. Better than sitting around feeling sorry for myself, bored to tears, growing fatter and more tired, never doing anything to change the rut I've gotten into.

This, oh Lost Soul, is one of the resons I value Spike - he's an incentive to go somewhere. To do something. He's exercise and fire and someone I can throw my strength against without fear of breaking him. That, I think, is a good thing to have right now. I need.

I'm going to have blood on my hands again one way or another, and I would prefer it wasn't my own this time.