Oh, this one's tricky. I can't find metaphors to say it for me; but there's no way in hell I'm going to cut straight to the heart and guts of it either.

It's the bush that I've been quietly but not so subtly beating around, the elephant in the corner that I've been pretending is just a postmodern coffee table; as I see people notice it I only sputter "Isn't this creme brulee tea just DIVINE?"

*cough* apparently I have metaphors aplenty for NOT talking about it though...

Which also happen to be a great way of avoiding my [due tomorrow] English homework!

Okay, okay, enough: abrupt aboutface.

Do you remember the boy? He later became known as other things ... love ... -ly ex ...

He's a little bit back.

There has been some ... re-evaluating. Some things have changed --- and some haven't; and so there has been some thinking about where this leaves us.

I have been using my abacus of a brain to add and subtract and tally it all up and I know what I want now. I think I always knew ... but now it has my stamp of officialness on it, which entirely contents me.

You can probably guess what my decision will be, if it comes down to being mine to make.

It's of course the one that goes against the advice many will clamour to give me - because they don't know him, they know me, and the only thing tangible to them are the negatives - so they will say "darling you could do some much better" and they will say "but he HURT you" and they will say "he'll only USE you" only I suspect they'll say it with far more exclamation marks.

I respect and love them for caring enough about me to worry. I vow not to patronise them by throwing those awful cliches like "you don't understand" or "you don't know him like I know him" into the mix.

All I can really do is ask them to trust my judgement, which in all honesty is not known for it's stellarness, but in the same breath it's never led me far astray.

And respect that it's not just me chasing after the fact that when his hand accidentally brushes against mine all my senses flood and gravity dances around, making me utterly unable to tell if I'm standing perfectly still or falling wildly. Although that's certainly there and should probably be respected in it's own right.

The heart of it is ... whatever this bond is, it can be ignored for eternities, or set ablaze, or entirely misinterpreted, or dropped from great heights; it never severs.

It just glows.

I could walk away from it, not easily at all but still doable, which amuses me greatly because whoever would have thought that I had the capacity to walk away from something shiny?

But I value it too much to do that -- especially when I can't find any real reason to. I know that x, y, z could happen; but I also know that our house could catch fire while I'm sleeping and that I could be decapitated in a tragic skiing accident but I've somehow reached this place where none of that bothers me.

And I know whatever form the relationship ends up taking won't be easy - limits will have to be imposed, by both of us - and they will involve bending and twisting and perhaps even some delicate writhing - but thanks to years of mental contortionism I'm quite limber (why? what did YOU think I was talking about?)

But of course I get ahead of myself -- my decision is signed and sealed but not delivered and I could easily find that the other relevant party has reached quite the opposite decision -- and strangely, that's okay.

GOD, when did *I* get so healthy???

Not to worry, it's 1am and I still haven't done my English assignments, I think it's mainly babs as usual over here.

Hey, think I can submit this as my assignment? The course is in creative writing, and uh, 1 out of 2 ain't bad?