behind blue eyes

"but my dreams, they aren't as empty as my conscience seems to be... my love is vengeance; it's never free."

i am, outwardly, a friendly, warm and genial person. if you win my loyalty, i will fight and die for you. i will often subsume my needs if i think your needs are greater. i love those whom i love fiercely, protectively, passionately. i give, give, give, give, give. all. the. time. if you've earned my trust and look into my blue eyes, you'll see true-blue dedication and a willingness to do whatever it takes to make you happy.

but lately, that fierceness, that loyalty, comes with a certain edge. there are some places in my life where, suddenly, i don't feel like giving as much as i used to. that's the main reason i'm on my own right now. but it's also starting to seep into my other recreations. we've talked a bit more this summer than i know he would care to about things between us. i mean, it's not like they've been really substantive conversations; that's not how he rolls. but i've managed to squeeze some things out.

we make strange pillow talk when we're together. sometimes, when we're regaining our composure, we talk about nothing in particular. other times, we manage to get into these weird emotional places where it's probably not a good idea to go when you're lying naked in someone's arms. but that's where we went the other night, regardless of the intelligence of it. he was flush with the ego boost of producing multiple orgasms out of me, and he was crowing about what he knows about me physically, what he can do with me. so i pushed him, asking, "all right, big man; what do you know about me emotionally?" stupid question; i pushed too far. i finally heard precisely how i come off when i think i'm being passionate: "when you care about someone, you'll do almost anything to ingratiate yourself to that person."

ingratiate. what a word. conjures up servitude, subjugation, and generally lowering yourself to elevate someone else. how hard. how blunt. here i thought i was being a good friend. apparently, i just look pathetic. i felt something clench when that word came out of his mouth. i let it go at the time (in fact, i responded to this by going down on him), but the more i think about it, the angrier it makes me. to be told once that my loyalty is one of the things that's most valued about me, and then to be told that the very same loyalty makes me look like a charity case? i'm undone.

i think i need a new strategy. i think, as part of the reinvention process, i need to take a good, hard look at the way i love. i can't see myself giving up loyalty; it's something i value in others, so i see no need to totally dispatch that quality in myself. but what i am going to do, at least with him, is change the way that loyalty is expressed. there's going to be a sharpness to the way i love him. there's not going to be any more ingratiation. that girl is dead, as far as i'm concerned. what there will be is a new reality.

my sex is submission. but my love is vengeance. and it will never be free again.