It just had to be said, I had to get it out.

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Preparation.

Four syllables and a lifetime of building-up-to-this that doesn't seem to matter now. It's not enough. It won't be enough. All the preparation in the world won't be enough.

I don't have the patience to do everything I need to do, for this. I don't have the patience to spend days meditating, praying, shielding. I don't have the patience to talk myself into splitting or into unfragmenting. I don't have the patience to wall off my thoughts. I'm a tumbled, jumbled ball of emotion and I don't have the patience to change it.

Vicodin... you know why it's my Drug Of Choice? Instant mental shield, instant meditation. I can wall myself off from the world without trying.

"You make this all go away..."

I'm writing this, not in my journal although (obviously) that's where it is being posted, but in Microsoft Work, 12-point Book Antiqua, and the letters are curving and curling around each other until all I can see is a page full of one twisted, horrible name.

I remember my mother, my creator. I remember my goddess. I remember the fragile, imperfect human and it pales in comparason to the savior and friend and thousand other things that cloud my mind. I know what truly exists, I don't forget it - I can't - but what you see on the surface isn't all there is.

There is blood.

There is the taste of salt in my mouth.

There is the way my heart clenches as I open the door and walk out, striding down the road with my coat clutched around myself, a packet of cigarettes in my pocket and dreams spinning around me until I no longer see the road. I could walk that path in my sleep. Did, a few times.

I remember waking up to discover that I was staring at the last streetlight on that road, looking at it as if I expected it to open up and let me pass into some gleaming, glowing universe where everything was perfect. I'd walked that far in my sleep. Not aware. Not thinking. I hadn't even planned to go out that night.

And always it was... not perfect, not perfect, nothing is perfect, but it kept me going from day to day.

"You make this all go away... you make this all go away... I'm down to just one thing... and I'm starting to scare myself..."

I can tune out the universe but I still see those dreamdark eyes that call me so horribly loudly, screaming without a single fucking sound, she could tear me apart with her eyes.

I keep asking myself if she even knew what she could do to me. I keep trying to convince myself that she didn't know. That it was me. That it was all in my head, none of it really existed, that I just dreamed all of it. That I was making up stories to match my own hungers. And then I feel her touching me, I read what she writes, what she wrote, and it fills me with this aching glow that nothing else in the universe matches.

I'm writing this, not because I feel it's my life. Not because I feel it relates to anything I've written before. Not even because it's what is in my head now. I am writing this because I often can't talk about it or write about it at all. I disguise it with fiction, wrap my memories of her up in fantasy and bind them with black text on a white screen, disect them with my imagination, but never ever do I tell the whole truth, never ever do I write out how much I miss her and how I crave her, it's like an addiction... she is a drug to me.

She... if there has ever been anyone in my past, my present, in anything that has happened until now... she owned me. She held my heart, my mind, my soul. I would have given her the universe if I could, I would have created anything out of the ashes of me, phoenix or dragon or just a girl, just a normal girl to watch and worship and listen to her.

I'm afraid. Afraid of what she'll do when she meets Kadin. Afraid of what she'll want from me now. Afraid of how willing I am to give her my universe, still. It's like meeting a ghost, in a lot of ways. I remember her and I cry. I ache. I hurt so deeply and so completely that nothing else compares to it. It's a hurt I have had for so long that half the time I don't think about it at all, it's just background, just a part of my soul.

I promised myself I'd be there for my friends, for the people I cared about. Promised it a lot, for hundreds of reasons. Did I make promises about her? Oh, yes. I promised. I swore. As she wished, always, forever...

...I feel drunk. Dizzy and drunk and the world is spinning, I'm letting music guide my fingers now because my mind is not enough to hold this all. I don't have the patience to prepare, but I have to try. I have to recreate the barriers, re-forge myself to shut her out or let her in... and I don't know which... I don't know.

I don't know anything any more.

I know that I see her on the ninth of November. I know that it will only be for an hour or two. I know that it will be odd. That I will be self-conscious and yet... content. That I will not want it to end. That I will be praying for it to end.

I know it will not be what I expect, and that it will be everything I expect.

I don't know how it will work out. I can't know that. I can't. I want to stop dreaming it.

I want to break the twisting of my mind, shatter it, let it flow straight... but oh, it aches to think of leaving her again. I tried it once and my body shattered, fell apart, every pain I now feel, I would swear sprung from her absence.

Want to know something odd? I was... healthier... when she was near.

I was saner when she was near.

I was MUCH less sober when she was near.

Kadin... I love you, boy. I love you and I don't know if you will ever read this entry, if I will ever see you again. I'm very horribly scared because I know I am dying, I can feel my life slipping away faster and faster each day. Nick is a man, and he will have other girls. Alex is a man, and he will have other boys. Caleb is my boy but he has me here, he will have time with me yet. You, though... you, who I worry about most, who I would do anything to protect... I don't have you here. I am afraid of dying without seeing you again.

I really don't want to go. And at the same time... oh, my love, do you know how sweet oblivion will be? No more pain, no more worry, no more fear. All of it over. I believe I am coming back, believe we found each other this time and will find each other again. I believe that although I have not lived a perfect life I have lived a good and full one. I have no real regrets. Not really. There are things that maybe I would have done differently, things I wish hadn't happened, things I wish had gone differently maybe. But... you know... I have my boys... I have YOU, kadin... I met you.

I got to hold you in my arms.

So I can't really regret anything. I have watched a sunrise with Caleb, I have eaten pizza sauce off of Nick's chest, I have talked with Alex about boys, and I have seen the look in your eyes when I held you in my arms and called you mine. I have no regrets.

So many things I want to do, though.

Daris. I want to meet him. I want to touch him. I want to make him cry and show him it's ok... I want to give him the walls that others have given me.

Hida... I want to take him. I want to train him.

SnowTygrrr... I want to meet him, to turn each other inside-out until it's a strange and perfect emotional and sexual yin and yang, perfect balance, switching and changing... I want to show him the universe.

I want to hear Alex' voice.

I want to touch Angel's skin.

I want to taste my boys' blood.

I want to hear Rhiannon's first words.

I want to kiss my sister.

I want to slap my mother.

I want to try godiva chocolate liquor.

I want to have sex with three men at once.

I want to try 'shrooms.

I want to turn Armand down.

I want to paint the Brooklyn Bridge blue.

I want to have my boys. All of them. All in one room. All together. All safe, all happy, all with me. Just once... just once...

I want to spend a whole day without pain.

I want.

I'm not done with my life.

I go to see her on the ninth. I will talk to Kadin soon. Maybe I'll talk to the Tygrr too. I'll catch Alex online sometime when I don't feel quite so bad, when I have time. I'll get vicodin. I'll be happy. I'll... I'll be ok.

And then I'll go.

Do you understand that, Kadin? I won't BE HERE. I won't be able to take care of you always. I won't be able to be here for you forever. I can't do forever, not in this body... but I will always always love you and I will do forever somehow. You and Caleb and Nick... Alex, I wish you believed in reincarnation... maybe next time around. *grin*

Snow, I've something of a 'last request' to make of you... get Kadin into the 'States. Nick... watch out for him, and watch out for you too... Grr... help him find someone to distract him. Keep him alive. And you might want to help Daris - he's going to need the help soon. Kadin... don't forget me. Keep Caleb company. Someday, kiss a man. Caleb, my love... don't marry Brandy. It would really bother me if you did. Wench, you really really really need to get laid eventually. It'll do you good. Sin, you and BF are so wonderful... don't let go of each other. Rhett, do you know that I really do love you? I'm never ever going to do anything about it but be friends and try to see you before something happens to me, and it's not the mushy love, but you are really important to me. Do me a favor and someday, beat Kadin senseless? It'll do him good. It'll do you good too. Scotticus, some day when Boots is... not old enough, but sane enough... let her know how I felt? It'll confuse the hell out of her but I think it'd be good for her too. Will someone make sure that Maia and Rhiannon read the Borrible books? And I do want to be cremated. Angel will know what to do with my ashes. She will give them to Kalom and I'll be content...

I know. This has gotten really depressive.

And no, I'm not, like, dying TOMORROW or anything (as far as I know). I just... I can't often write it. I don't often want to talk about it. But I had to put it down somewhere, somehow... and tonight my thoughts are tangled enough to let me sneak it out when I'm not entirely paying attention.

So I've written it. It's all here. That's something done. Something out of the way.

And if ANY of you brings up this entry, talks to me about it, asks me about it... I will beat you senseless until you stop.

I am going to die. I am, more so than most people, aware of the imminance of my death. I'm going to enjoy life before I go and I'm not going to think about my death often, if I can help it.

I just... I guess I just want to make sure that people know my 'last wishes'. I want them written down. I want them known.

I don't want to talk about them.