Gift

She kills me sometimes.

Like a sucker punch in the solar plexus.

And it was not what she was doing .. it was just her. Who she is .. as a person. Who she is .. with me. What she does .. with me ... for me. I would be a fool if I did not value it.

Now valuing it and knowing what to do with it are two very different things.

But tonight .. tonight I wanted to watch her. I had an inside on the outside and not a lot of space in between. I wore it like a cloak .. settled over me and around me like a living breathing shadow. Which is closer to the truth than a mere likeness.

T'zuri has tasted it on me before .. that gritty black tar that gets stuck in the crazy lines on the pads of your fingers and you can not get it off. She has scratched at the surface and found it follows her ... clings to her even when it is separated from the whole. To this point she has been able to talk me around it .. side step the brunt of it. I am not sure her position protects her much any more .. I try to though. To her great frustration.

She came to me and I caught her up against me ... I felt the primordial darkness serpentine around her with long slender fingers and snapping ginger jaws .. hungry for her innocence and bent on destroying that which it does not believe in. But I was happy to see her .. and it tolerated me for a moment as I ran my hands into her hair and came right up against the pretty pink contraption of a hair comb.

Now the thing about me when I am like this is I can turn on a copper bit and have most of it left over and turn I did .. I said a lot of things.. some of them I do not remember and most of them were not true. I know I asked her where it came from and she said Sahli. I think I called her names .. I accused her of being a whore .. that she deserved her position .. her collar. But I know I did not say it in a complimentary way. Sahli has a cock .. does he not? He is not just a nothing.

I know I placed my hand upon her in an abusive manner and I know she will wear the mark of it. Along with any other bruises she picked up along the ripple effect of that gesture. She came back at me like she could hold her own. But she was careful to do it in a way that did not incite my need to be right .. my need to be dominant ... my need to grind her under my heel. She told me it was not like that between her and Sahli .. I threw Kaz in her face .. like a hard slap across her cheek. I know she felt that one. I intended her to. No reason to attack someone with a useless weapon ... not logical. She did not get defensive though .. saved her ass. She was simple and clear with me .. never defended one thing she had done .. never tried to excuse her naivety. Simply continued to offer herself as ... her. And not the things I was accusing her of.

Now the crazy thing about it all was not jealousy .. was not Sahli ... was not the hair comb or the fact that he gave it to her. It was something else entirely. But .. getting that across proved much harder for me than I ever expected it to be.

In the end I just let it go .. and she let me. I am grateful for that. But it still rests between us ... at least for me. Though I know she will never hold anything there in my way ... she is not like that. She will let me bring it back up when I am ready. How she forgives me for these things I do not know .. I can not fathom. I only know that I value it and will not let it go.

The problem is not T'zuri .. it is not Sahli .. it is not a simple little pink beaded and feathered hair comb. The problem is me ... and why it is that I am driven to destroy that which I need and care for.