Well, I finally decided that there's no point in being shy. The biggest part of that is realizing that you really have nothing to lose, except, of course, that little bit of excitement. So the first time was a failure. Not interested. A recluse in a way.

Mainly, it's that I'm starving for conversation, for someone, anyone, to understand the Madness. That's a little difficult, I suppose. And even if they're willing to try, as he said he was, they're a little weary when it comes to actually being able to understand. "Unqualified." It's all right, though. I understand. I wouldn't want to deal with it either.

Someone's blowing the snow all over the place right now outside my window. It's beautiful and reminds me of fairy dust. I admit, I still entertain the possibility that that entire magical world really does exist.

It distracts me from the loneliness.

Once a year, starting when they were eight years old, midway between both their birthdays, Billy and Candice would share each other.

Billy came over one night to escape his grandmother's sheltering. He climbed in through the window to the second story, like he always did.

Her room was empty, the light off, but the bathroom door off to the side of the room was ajar and a pale beam of white light spread from it across the wooden floor.

He walked over to it quietly and put an eye to the crack.

Candice was leaning on the side of the tub, her palms pressed the ledge, staring down at the water. Billy watched her breathing and felt content just to know that she was alive.

She turned around suddenly and stood there staring at him, stark naked.

"Hi, Billy," she said.
"Hi," he whispered.
"You can come in." She walked across the tile floor to him. "I'm taking a bath."
"I know."
They stood there, staring each other in the eye for a moment.
"Mom's downstairs. You want something?"
"No."
"You wanna take a bath, too?"
He shrugged.
"I guess."
She shrugged. "Ok. I'll get you a towel."
She walked out of the bathroom into the unlit bedroom, returning in a moment with a towel and a wash cloth.
"If you want, you put your clothes by the radiator. It makes them warm for when you get out. That's what I do."
"Ok."
While he stripped off his clothes Candice turned back to the water and occupied herself with the surface film, fascinated by the resilience of it until she plunged her hands beneath the surface.
"I'm ready," he said.
She turned to him.
They stood there observing each other for a minute, their pre-pubescent bodies growing cold in the air.
She held out a hand to him.
"We're different," he said, staring down at himself, then looking back at her.
"I know."
"Why?"
"Because I'm a girl...And...you're a boy."
"I never thought you were different before."
"It doesn't really matter, Billy," she replied glancing down at herself.
"Well...we're not that different, right?"
She shrugged.
"I just have this," he said, fingering his penis. "And you don't."
"No, Billy. I'm a girl," she replied.
"What does it mean?"
"It doesn't mean anything right now," she said.
"I don't understand."
"It'll mean something later. Don't worry about it."
"When will it mean something later?"
"I don't know."
"But everything else is the same," he said again.
With his index finger, he traced the lines of her body from her pinky finger and up her arm.
She turned around in a circle and he followed suit. Then she traced him, too, in the same way.
"Let's take a bath now, ok?" she said. "I'm cold."
"Ok," he said. "Me, too."
They stepped in the water and bathed themselves. Afterwards, they dried off.
Wrapped in their towels, standing close to the radiator, they stood there smiling at each other.
After they were warm enough, Candice put on her pajamas and got Billy a pair of sweatpants and a shirt from her wardrobe.
In the morning, Candice's mother wasn't surprised to find them both asleep in Candice's bed. It was a common practice. Since it was Saturday, she only poked her head in before closing the door again, softly behind her.
The next year, Billy asked Candice if he could see her again.
"Yeah," she answered.
They stripped again and inspected each other.
"We're still the same," he said.
"I know."
"You said this would matter one day," he said, pointing down at himself.
"It will one day," she said again.
"Why?"
"Because that's how nature works."
They put their clothes back on. When they were eleven, Candice told him that the next year they would be different.
"How?" Billy asked.
"We'll start to change," she said.
"How?"
She shrugged. "We'll grow up."
"You're already like that."
"I know," she said. "But maybe I'll grow up more."

There's been a block for a while lately. Maybe because I lack that divine inspiration. Or maybe it's because I deliberately shut it off. But now I've begun to revive that story I started seven years ago. Candice and Billy are an interesting pair. They're similar to Ithaca and Erasmus but Candice and Billy are more real-world and I want to keep things tangible. Ithaca and Erasmus are more of Heaven and the metaphysical and that's too dangerous for me right now.

Do you understand? I guess you do, but someone else doesn't and says I should shut all of it off. Damn that. Can't he understand ever that words and I are inseparable? He thinks we should be like oil and water. But we're similar to each other in that way anyway. We're two separate things but joined somehow. Maybe one day we'll be separated but you know it won't be like that with the Art. That's too engrained. There was no joining there. Only birth. Like siamese twins joined at the heart. You kill one and the other dies. But if you had a choice, which one would you give up? I almost gave up the words but realized that that's impossible.

Madness brings sanity occasionally, and sanity Madness. I'll take the sanity of Madness and not its counterpart. At least then there's something to show for it.

A New Rendition: Watching Candice Fly

"Why isn't he with you?" Anna asked.
"Isn't he?" Candice replied.
"What?"
"Isn't he?"
"What do you mean?"
"Well...emotionally. Emotionally, who is he with?"
Anna stared intently at Candice and let it sink in.
"That's the thing about Billy. He can't really connect." She shrugged. "He's been like that since his mother died. All he can connect with is the nightmare. And the person who nightmares with him."
"You?"
Candice smiled out of the corner of her mouth.
"Yeah. He couldn't ever get past it. Think about it. An eight-year-old finding his mother hanging from the ceiling fan in her bedroom when he was looking for her to ask permission to go to the candy store. All he can see is her feet swinging back and forth. And all he can feel is my hand holding his and saying that I felt it run through me like it was running through him."
"Felt what?"
"Her soul. It was hovering above us. Since that moment every thought of his is mine, too. He tries to ignore it. But he knows the truth."
"What should I do?" Anna asked.
"What should you do? You take him or leave him. Wholesale. What do you think?"
Anna stood up and walking to the window, her hands on the back of her hips. She tapped her foot rhythmically in time with her thoughts.
Candice leaned on her elbow, reclining on the bed, watching Anna's inner debate.
Finally, Anna turned around and dropped her hands. She sighed and Candice smiled back at the uncanny smile Anna was giving her.
"Wholesale, you say?" Anna said.
"Yep."
"You can take him."
"I never gave him away."
"No...I guess you haven't, have you?"
"No. He's never cheated on me once. Because he can't."
"Is that love?"
"Somehow. It's attachment. It's incomprehensible."
Anna laughed.
"I'll see you around, Candice, huh?"
"Yeah."
"Good luck with the rocket."
"Thanks. Good luck with the botany."
"It's funny. Opposites."
"Yeah. It's often how things work."
"He'll watch you fly, won't he?"
"Yeah. Through my eyes. That's how it always is."

I'm not very good at explaining these things, I guess, because it would have gotten through already. Or maybe the connection's lost. But this is one thing most people can never understand about me.

To begin, though, I am a dichotomy. I am made up of contradictions. But you already know that. And I know this is in writing, but I spoke it out loud as I wrote it, as I'm writing it, because I know that you don't trust anything I write. For this one time, I assure you, it is completely me talking to you. So pretend that I'm in front of you saying all of this out loud. Sometimes it's easier to write it down. I can think more clearly this way and try to make the message more precise.

So what I mean by wanting it back is this: I want to be able to feel the rush and to come out the other end with a creation. That's it. I don't want a lapse in time, or a drain on my consciousness, or on anyone else's. I just want that creation because without it, I feel like I'm suffocating. In a way I am, because this is the air of my soul. I hate it and I love it because I'm reliant on it but at the same time, I love what it gives me because it's beautiful. No, I'm not counting the Madness part of it. I'm not counting the possession. I'm saying that creation is beautiful because it means new life, the perpetuation of life, and most importantly, the verification of my own.

No matter what I do, it is a part of me. I can't separate it out. It's not something I do. It's something I am. What I do is a result of what I am. For me, words, the Art, is as much a part of my soul, or my consciousness, or my mind, whatever you want to call it, as my skin is to my body. But like skin, it can shed and renew itself. The only thing is, if I did what you suggest, which is getting rid of it entirely, it would be like pulling all the layers off at once. They wouldn't grow back.

It makes me happy at the same time it causes me the greatest grief. I guess it's because I'm in love with it. It's an expression, it's how I release everything. I release myself. I release the collective consciousness of humanity. I release something else, too. If I shut it off, it wouldn't be fixing the problem. It would be ignoring it, bottling it up so that one day it will all come bursting out and everyone will regret it. Especially me. I can bottle it up like I pretend that everything's fine when it's anything but. There will an explosion of it and it'll kill me. Maybe that'll be a good thing, because I'll have died have died happy. I'll have an Artist. You won't be there for that, I don't think. Because you don't want to be. Because you don't understand it and no matter what I say and no matter how hard I try, you never will.

It is coming back, little by little. I'm not letting it take me over. I'm letting it pass over me and through me, like Fear. And when it has gone past me, I will turn to see its path. Where it has gone, there will be nothing. Only I will remain.

I guess this is the story, huh? It's my life. And that's all I've ever really been writing down. Because I love it. And yeah, I've thought of suicide, and death was all I ever prayed for for years, mainly because I've understood that I can never escape from my own mind, no matter what I do. But that thought of ending myself doesn't even cross my mind anymore because life is beautiful and I see that now. You're a part of that. Everything's a part of that. But things come and go and I think that things are going now. It'll only be a matter of time until they're replaced by new ones. Each time there's something new, it's even more beautiful than the last.

Lately I've just been feeling that something is lost. I've been pretending that it's not, but I'm not going to do that anymore. I should just accept it even though I'll never understand. So I turn back to my words to fill the space. That's always what they were: they were beauty to fill the empty space, but really, it's an overactive imagination. The words, the Art, all of that, it's just my overactive imagination. That's why I can't separate it from myself. It's my mind. It's my mind. If you really knew me, you'd know that. And you'd know that my mind is what's me, what people love about me, what people hate about me. And your mind is the same thing, only for you. You can't escape from yours, either. I just wonder, is it lonely in your head, too? Is that where we meet? Because I don't know where our common ground is otherwise. And if it's not there, can you explain it?

It doesn't matter now. That connection's lost. It's gone. I miss you. I miss you so much. I hope you're happy, or that you find it, because you said you're not. Overall, I finally am. I don't know what to do with it.

But I wish you can find all your wonders. I wish you can wind around the time so it holds you tight and treats you nicely. I hope you can find somebody who's true, someone who's new to you for every day you open your eyes; she'll grow your love for you and lie with you in the moonlight.

And if it were all up to me I'd wish for you to keep your childhood wonders. Even though you knew that it couldn't last I know you never quite believed it before, that life's too fast. So take your time. Don't rush it, even though you see the years stretched on a line that's too hard to master sometimes.