I fall asleep, often, with my head buried in a book. Simply to feel the pages, to smell the ink. It is a feeling like no other. Nostalgia and lightness of being rolled into one sleepy moment, half dream, half reality. Almost as if the story has been tattooed across my face in oblivion. If words equated to reality, the sparrow painted on my back would fly, its wings pounding against my flesh. I would feel it's heat, it's heart, it's bizarre beauty. I would feel its eyes.

Intermittently, I wish I could lay all my cards on the table, and finish this game. The game of relationships and Aces. I am not trusted by my friends, but what would I ever do, to them? I have to use my powers of deduction to figure out what is happening. And often, when I do piece things together, the jigsaw is wrong. And it starts again.

I feel helpless. When they are hurting, it is like some hideous side show. Like some kind of terrible glass, something I can see but cannot touch. Maybe they want it that way. Who knows?