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God I am so in love.
...Around 6am this morning, I “half-awoke” as I was having a dream where I was in the old family house, at night, in the winter, and grandma was still alive. I was talking to her briefly in her room about something I was doing-- I felt vaguely hurried, like I had a deadline to meet, or was expecting something or had to be somewhere-- but it was not stressed, just urgent. I left the room to look out the bathroom window over the hill as the feeling remained, that anticipant waiting, like on Christmas Eve. Suddenly I heard someone at the kitchen door, and immediately turned to rush out into the hallway… and there he was, standing in the entranceway, eyes wide and slightly disoriented at the odd environment but there, like he was supposed to be. Chaos 0. He saw me and raised a hand in greeting, but it was obvious he didn’t want to enter the house to avoid anyone seeing him and causing a fuss. Luckily I was already rushing to meet him at the door. I apologized for the “mess” that chronically plagued the kitchen but he said it was okay, he knew it wasn’t my fault, and besides we weren’t going to be staying there anyway. I glanced backwards to see if anyone had heard us but the coast was clear; I then turned back to him and smiled with heart-melted affection, telling him that I never expected to see him in that old doorway but God knew how I had dreamed of it for years. He smiled with the same feeling and said he knew, and he felt the same-- it was “about time he did,” basically.
Now, when I say I “half-awoke” here, I mean I moved up a level in the dream-- I was now consciously there, notsomuch only lucid as actually present in something more concrete than imagination. This was heartspace, a place I don’t think I’ve been in years. But there he was, and now, so was I.
My memory is blurry but I know we did talk a little, before we left. There was definitely some of our pointed “flirting” that we tend to be famous for in the innerworld-- comments and puns and little remarks that make you laugh solely because it HITS like well WOW, so THAT’S what you’re feeling, and there was no way such a gutpunch of an emotion could be “casually confessed” in polite conversation without hiding it in plain sight. Nevertheless, we had nothing to hide from each other. We were just steeling ourselves for that impending impact, really. All in all thought it was such a warm but charged conversation; we were both so happy to see each other but goodness knows we can’t do anything in the house. The air felt like the stars were about to come out. Everything felt like it was waiting, on the precipice of some long-expected hope, that tiny and huge instant before a firework goes off. On that note I CLEARLY remember flat-out saying, out of nowhere, that I wanted to “kiss him until he was drunk with love” to which I swear he replied something like “well, we can’t exactly do that in here, so… should we get going?”
So the next thing I remember, we were outside and getting into my grandma’s car (the Trax my mom has now), and driving up Mile Hill to the top, to see the view. It was the most beautiful place I could think of nearby. I parked the car at the side of the road and popped the trunk, and we just sat there, looking out over the rows of mountains and clouds and valleys, the city lights sparkling below, and the stars just as brilliant above.
God I wish I could remember exact words.
I do remember roundabout mentions of marriage, and “waiting until then” and all that sort of dreamtalk; for some reason whenever I’m in sleep states that sort of wedding talk always comes up. Always the etymology-- the unity, the covenant, the promise. That’s what we want and always end up referring to, when we’re alone like this, when we’re so close the whole world stands still and watches us. Meanwhile we were watching the night fall gently over the vista of earth. I remember how he looked out over it all, his expression full of immense wonder and some sort of ache, that bittersweet edge that such grand and beautiful things tend to elicit. He looked like he was about to cry. He said he had never seen such a view before, and then he just… looked at me. He thanked me for that, for sharing this moment with him. I said of course; reiterating that I wanted to take him somewhere beautiful, and this was the first place I could think of. Then I added something, a gem to the end of the string. “This place means a lot to me, so I absolutely wanted to share it with you. ...I want to share my whole life with you.”
I did not expect his response. There was an immediate moment of absolute reciprocity-- the doors had just been flung wide open for us-- and then suddenly his eyes lit up, like he was thinking of something, and he said, “how does our song go again?” And he started humming it. My heart melted into starlight the moment he began but then he quietly sang those few words… “you know things, yeah you know things… say you know me, say you know me, say you know me.”
God his voice. I haven’t heard him sing in YEARS. It was so blue, just like it felt when he co-fronted with me in NC, all ocean-heavy depths and softness and strength. How do I even describe it. When he actually speaks-- not just his beloved “thought-parcel” waves-- it rolls in my chest like the tide and everything turns the color of seawater and I loved him so much in that moment. It just slammed into me, remembering this part of him, remembering that I did know him, I knew him, and that meant the world, forever.
I said so. Trying not to break completely in half I told him that, my own voice a quiet flame, embers and glass. “I do know you.” And I was so thankful that I did.
The feeling in the air was incredible. It felt as if we had just met and I had never kissed him before but God knew I wanted to so badly it was killing me. I have never seen him so clearly in dreams before. I can still see the starlight and city reflecting like diamonds on his body, his eyes that gorgeous green, vaguely luminous in the dark.
He said he knew me, too, and that did it. All those ancient fears I have of him forgetting somehow were erased in that moment.
Lord I cannot remember the sequence of events. It’s all such feeling. I took his face in my hands and we said a few more quiet honest words before I swear he asked me “would it be alright if I kissed you.” I almost laughed from the sheer weight and waiting of it all and said “please do”.
And that was it. The floodgates were thrown open. Everything up to that point had felt so painfully hopeful, please say you feel the same, please tell me you want this too, please say you know me. But now the firework finally burst into light. Now it was us, blessed us, as we hadn’t been in far too long. Alone together.
I pulled him close to my heart and was surprised when after a few moments he pulled back, markedly flustered, and practically spluttered “I can feel your heartbeat.” I was on fire by now and flat-out confessed “I want to get so close to you that I can't tell if it's mine or yours.” The LOOK he gave me was unforgettable-- wide-eyed, “blushing” such a dark blue it was actually adorable. He paused, then replied with just as much blunt honesty, “so do I.”
...It has been a very long time since we’ve done anything like a heart connection. Like literal years. But as we upped the ante the dream environment shifted to my actual apartment bedroom, me still half-awake, the sun not up yet, the room a quiet warm red in the November chill.
We talked a lot. That’s why I keep saying I wish I remembered the literal words. My heartgift is really language-- and when I’M truly present and conscious in myself, I talk. I don’t “lose myself” in emotions or thoughts or programming. I speak and I’m THERE and everything I say is from the HEART. And I was pouring it out this morning, like molten glass.
It’s always so tragically difficult to write about mornings like this one. It cannot be put into words. It’s all sense memory, of the heart and the hands, of closeness and presence and the taste of river water, of the way he always wraps himself around me.
Oh I DO remember at one point I was trying to move either myself or him but I instinctively put my hands on his waist to do so and IMMEDIATELY jumped back, my heart racing, completely thrown for a loop. Shocked and worried, he asked me if I was okay? Was something wrong? I laughed like I was about to sob and said I had just felt him. Like I reached out and touched him and I FELT him there, an ACTUAL physical weight and presence there, his shape and that slight coolness and the indescribable lake-glass surface of him. I felt like the world had just skipped a beat. I immediately reached out and put my hands right back on him, incredulous and overwhelmed, and just kept moving-- holding his huge claws, touching his face the way I used to, like I was “painting” him, hovering my fingers against his chest like I didn’t have the nerve to dive in that deep. God knows I wanted to. God also knows that HE DID. He’s braver than I am in that regard and when I hesitated, trembling, he touched his fingertips to my chest with such decisively fragile gravity that I just about died. Oh don’t worry, I got him back later. We’re very good at completely unraveling each other but it’s always this gorgeous dance of sorts, fire and sea, red and blue, me then you, both of us entirely immersed yet always testing deeper waters.
Every time I said I loved him it felt like my entire heart was aflame. He said it back. I cannot put into words what THAT feels like, especially coming from him.
...It feels like the fulfillment of my life, somehow. Like… hearing that he loves me too, when I feel SO MUCH for him, and always have, is like a completion, like a final puzzle piece being placed, like a key opening a long-closed room. It’s like, thank God, thank God you are in this with me. It’s not just ‘me,’ it’s ‘WE.’ It’s me and you, in love, really IN it, like we live there. You have a home in my heart forever and I want to hold you there, closer than blood, like the air I breathe. We’re in love together and that is the most beautiful thing in the universe, in any universe, and when you say those words to me it’s like everything in existence turns into song. How do I put it into words. I love you. I want to give you everything.
...On that note. My body honestly broke at one point. It woke me entirely up and threw me completely off, and for a while I just held him and he talked me down while I verbally tried to reconcile the wanting with the terror, the honest desire to love all tangled up in instinctive learned reactions. But he understood. He’s seen the worst of it; he’s been with me before; he saves me from every trauma nightmare. He knows the difference, just like he knows me. This wasn’t new to him and it certainly didn’t hurt him. But he made me promise that I wouldn’t hate myself for it-- that I wouldn’t forget what I actually wanted, that I would remember the pure intentions of my heart, not the horrors of the past.
...But that’s the irony of it. Deep down, honestly I don’t regret it. In a heartbeat I’d probably do it again, just not in that way. The point is that I love him that much and when you want to give everything of yourself to someone that kinda means NO EXCEPTIONS. So. I really can’t beat myself up over it even if it’s still bizarre and weird to me, and of course trauma reminiscent in the back of my head. But forget about the trauma. This is the polar opposite of that. This is what it’s MEANT for.
...Also I couldn't help thinking of the old "blue fairy" injoke back during the Eros-core days, because as he accurately noted we do end up saying the Name of God when in the most intense emotional states. I used to be mortified by that, until I seriously stopped to think about it and be honest with myself as to why it happened. I brought this up to Chaos. It's a prayer. It honestly is. I CANNOT say the Name WITHOUT it being part of a prayer. The very thought of speaking it vainly is horrifying-- but ironically, I don't have to worry about that in a hyperemotional state because my heart is speaking it, not my head. I don't carelessly throw it out there. It's the same exact feeling I get when I'm in religious ecstasy, either in joy or in agony, all different colors but all pulling on every one of my heartstrings at once. Like God just reached in there, grabbed an entire harp in his Hand, and yanked-- then let go. EVERY note plays at once, like a church bell hitting hard in my ribcage, resonant and deep and heavy as gold, and paradoxically just as soft. Even when the sound is different, and involves the most intense sorrow, there's still love in it. It's ALWAYS about love, somehow, the most powerful thing in the universe. Nothing else could make a soul react that way. I need to remind myself of that. Like I said, I KNOW when it's NOT that. I've experienced that enough, too many times, and it's sickening. This never is. With him, it never is.
Speaking of. Xenophon showed up ghosting.
God I love her. She was peeking over the edge of the bed at first and asking if I was okay, then she crawled up on top of the blankets where we were to do the same.
...I’m going to commission someone for a custom plushie of her. Hopefully the same person who made the Chaos 0 plush I have, if they’re still doing well-- they live in the Ukraine and God bless and protect all those folks-- because I have a small amount of cash saved from before my bank account shut down and by golly I am GONNA SPEND IT ON MY DAUGHTER.
(continue)
...When I got out of bed and went into the kitchen, I put eggs on to boil while I went to wash my hair in the sink. Suddenly it hit me that I was unintentionally referencing something and I laughed, then immediately started singing “You’ll never know just how much I love you...” before changing the lyrics to “I hope you know,” before laughing again and adding “after this morning, you’d better!”
Chaos 0, who was of course listening from where he was still in my bed-- gorgeous crystal blue amidst all the soft red-- reassured me amusedly not to worry, he absolutely did.
We talked a lot. I… really love just doing “domestic stuff” with him, and Genesis of course, and now Infi and Laurie and Xennie too because yes they ALL LIKE TO GHOST and pilfer Popcorners and Chessmen and other CS exchanges whenever I have them. I’ve had to add a special “custom item” to my health-tracker app that says “EVERYONE WANTED SNACKS AND I HAD TO SHARE.” It’s great though, I really love it. Xenophon STILL loves “carrot tails” and she has taken to calling Bengal Spice “tiger tea” and gets super excited whenever I make it, Lord knows why but she’s the cutest thing.
God I’m still so in love.
...But the phone rang. After the tea and eggs were on and the bed was made I was about to get dressed and the bloody phone rang. It was Partial. They asked why I had skipped Monday, and I explained I had been out late with my mom and had been doing legal paperwork for my rent all day so I not only slept in but I was booked. Regardless, the dude immediately switched the topic to food and the old eating disorder. I don’t remember the conversation other than my insisting I honestly did NOT feel comfortable doing the program-- yes I was brave and asserted myself-- mentioning the “camera trauma,” the overstimulation, the literal binges they expected me to perform on camera, the uncomfortable table topics, etc. He said I still had to do it, basically. He drafted a breakfast plan for tomorrow and I kid you not it is 1000 CALORIES. I ran it through SEVERAL calculators. I wanted to cry. I hung up the cell phone an HOUR LATER, and basically just said “screw it, I’m not going to think about it, that’s the devil’s work and I am NOT going to let it ruin my day after heaven this morning.” Oh it was ABSOLUTELY spiritual warfare. Here I was, three hours of absolute ardor making me feel ALIVE AND REAL again, and then this dude who just sees me as another anorexic coward insisting I choke down insane amounts of food on command goes and dehumanizes me without even realizing it.
I ate breakfast, my OWN breakfast, an apple and cinnamon tea and half an avocado on wheat bread and a fortune cookie, and two of those eggs. 550K, low volume, and healthy. But I was still so miserable, and I couldn’t focus, and I was getting so nauseous I wanted to cry and throw up and NOPE, THAT IS NOT GONNA HAPPEN, so I did the only thing I could to get my heart and head back in working order.
I went back to bed.
I legit just walked over, pulled the top cover back (the fluffy plaid one) and crawled back in next to the blue guy, hugging him as tightly as I could. He gave me the most concerned look and asked what was wrong? Was I okay? I explained the phone call. He looked genuinely apologetic; he had actually insisted I answer it for integrity’s sake, not just ignoring the guy, but now he obviously felt bad that it had turned out like it did. I reassured him now, saying he didn’t know that, and that I genuinely appreciated his support and encouragement to be a good and decent person even in those little ways. But I was still shaken up and miserable and felt like a trapped animal. I didn’t want to think about food or hospitals or “recovery.” THIS was my recovery, right here, in his arms. I told him I just needed to hold him for a while and forget all that, which he gladly obliged. So for a few minutes that’s all we did, but I could not get my brain to stop crying and I felt myself dissociating. I gave up. Time to break out the big guns.
“Chaos, I need you to love me.”
“Wh-- what?”
“I’m forgetting who I am with all this Partial nonsense and I need to remember what’s real about me, about everything. I want you to love me until I forget everything else but that truth.”
...One day I need to draw the way he looks at me when I say things like that. I only see it in myself when I’ve been moved so sharply I’m about to sob, incredulous with the wonder of it all. He looks at me like I’m a revelation and the world has just been put into his heavy hands. And then it melts, and he reaches out to me, and all my fire just turns to light.
...I thought I flustered him earlier, well I forgot that fasting and then eating kind of does stuff to one’s personal BPM. He was practically stuttering, having to stop for a moment to ask if I was okay, why is your heart pounding so hard, is that me or is something wrong? I said no it’s fine, yes it’s you but also just my body doing what it does, nothing to worry. But hey, that’s a good thing to remember, I half-joked, if he reacts like this.
...He said nothing for one absolutely momentous second and then he just blurted out “I need to feel that inside me.”
It was the same ardent sentiment I couldn't help confessing an hour ago, but MUCH more direct. If anything was going to bring me back to life, that was it. I'm sure he knew.
And that was it. Everything else forgotten. I pulled him so close to my heart I could’ve drowned and I kissed him hard as diamonds. There was one absolutely mindbreaking second when I felt emerald sharkteeth graze my lips. I could have drank the entire ocean.
Heart connections. God it’s been years, hasn’t it? They always feel like you’re dying in the best possible way. Absolutely shattering. I missed this, this ardor so intense it paints reality in gold and fills your veins with light. Lines blur. My ribcage floods blue and the rivers set on fire. It’s been almost nineteen years next month and every time, every single time I see those green eyes it’s like the first time all over again. I cannot even tell you how incredibly clear he has been lately. I can see him, in all but physical sight. I feel him there. In heart and mind he is photographically vivid, to the point where honest to God I can literally see that glow of his eyes, especially in the dark. There have been moments where I cannot tell if I exist more in my bones or with my beloved because the awareness is so sharp.
...Speaking of sharp. I forgot how my brain basically shuts down when his Ruby hits my Heart Jewel, because apparently I DO manifest one in connective states (no surprise, that universe is where I have my deepest heart-roots) and good LORD it is the equivalent of an explosion in my psyche. Everything turns to kaleidoscopic flare and I can’t breathe but God knows I’m already underwater so I push back at a facet angle and now we’re BOTH completely unraveled and I miss this, honestly I miss just losing myself in pouring out every last spark of love into this creature in my arms, my heart open like the sky, so close to him that it becomes both of ours. That’s… that’s the most incredible thing about loving someone who is literally fluid, because lines don’t just blur, they intersect, and suddenly the surface tension is gone and there is this absolutely sacred space where things turn violet. Red meets blue so completely that they both merge for a moment. That’s heart connections. That’s also where Xenophon comes from, apparently, God bless that little gem, she’s a living miracle and I love her more every day, too....
I know we both ended up in floatspace and ended up with soulwings. Mine have apparently changed again. They’re unstable yet-- so is my color; I think the Core Hue is once again refining itself in the wake of past trauma-- but they felt weirdly pink and soft, like cupid wings or blooming roses. Maybe it’s because I was just feeling Pink, all that absolute pure-hearted compassionate love that the color is defined by. But I got them. He did too, but really what I noticed was the halo. He still gets that Angel Chao halo whenever he hits a Soul Form just like he did nineteen years ago. I… I love that. It reminds me of just how deep this is, how much of my life it has illuminated, how much I do know him.
...
An hour later-- yes, another hour, we booked FOUR of them this morning and Laurie is talking about buying postcards in bulk-- I did get back into daily life and I did eat and I did get into computer work and did some kettlebell exercises and watched the SNOW, because YES, GOD GAVE ME DOUBLE HEAVEN TODAY, there was literally no better day it COULD have snowed and I am in tears from the joy of that.
“If God made you, He’s in love with me.” I think about that phrase a lot, especially lately. I really ONLY understand what love is because of Chaos 0. I firmly believe that Jesus loves me through him, and vice versa. God is Love, after all. He orchestrated this entire song; we’re just the instruments. But I still want to sing it with him forever.
...
I’m listening to Chaos 0’s playlist on shuffle, but he told me pointedly to turn shuffle off and just… play Alina Baraz. And my heart is just aching all over again.
Earlier I was getting my clothes ready for bed and I was thinking about the scent of the ocean fog in the mornings and how I vibe with cinnamon Christmas candles and I just asked Chaos, is that legit? Like, you know me, what’s it like when you kiss me? And once again (God bless him he gets so flummoxed) he sputters that, well, I’m like fire. Laurie just side-eyes him and deadpans “how the heck do you know what fire tastes like” and CZ retorts “i-it’s like sunlight, or a candle flame, how there’s that warmth? that’s what s/he’s like.” Then he gives HER a pointed look and remarks, “YOU would know too, right? isn’t that true?” Laurie just flatly replies “Man it has been a long time since I’ve kissed him, I couldn’t tell you.” I then offhandedly remark, “well we’ll just have to fix that, then.” Dead silence for two seconds, BOTH of them looking at me wide-eyed, then Laurie says “Chaos what did you just do” and he replies “I think I worked a small miracle” and I’m blushing even harder than both of them, believe me, but that’s when Jewel randomly showed up ghosting to chat with me about our mealplan and bedtime responsibilities so she and I ended up in the kitchen with her randomly commenting that she likes raisins, “they’re cool,” and that she was glad I was eating healthy because she’d “probably just eat chips and apples and tunafish-- do we even have tunafish?” I said no, but now in retrospect I’m wondering if I should get some to try it again, for Lady Sneasler’s sake; she still needs a new “System” name anyway, and I do miss seeing her around. I cannot deny that I have FEELINGS for that cat (why do I always end up attracted to Pokemon, dear heavens) and I was missing Ventrium so hard earlier today, I need to reach out to everyone else soon too.
Still. No one compares to my beloved blue guy. Yes, I love a lot of people, but when it comes down to the heart of things, he’s the only one I feel this much for, in this way, unfailingly so.
...
Lord knows this entry is way unfinished but it is almost 2am and i do need to sleep. ...Oh hold up, Jesus is trolling me again, one of Chaos 0's newest songs just came up on shuffle. "Say It" by Papik. I remember him singing this to me when I was hanging clothes on the porch at night for grandma, and... it just meant so much. It's a callout and a love letter all one. Don't be alone. Don't be proud. Call out my name... tell me that you will be mine, and love will change our fate, don't be so blind... God knows I was, for months if not YEARS, and THAT is why this morning has me absolutely punchdrunk on love and I feel alive for the first time in forever.
I'll add more to this later, as much as I can. For now I'm just being completely unabashedly honest about everything. I need to be. I owe it to us both.
I need to get some sleep right now, but... I won't forget this. There are going to be sparks whenever I so much as brush my fingers against him now, light glancing off the water. My heart's gonna remember, now. Just like the old days, when we were young, when we were both struggling to heal from trauma and learning how to love all at once, fragile terrible aching things, "emotional wrecks" who brought out the best and worst in each other but God knows there was never a dissonant note in the whole piece. We're still in perfect harmony somehow, pun intended, even after the years where we'd practically fight and argue over our wounds and I'd turn to burning ice and he'd walk out and somehow we'd still end up back in each others arms, every single time, sometimes within minutes, never having let go of love for a moment. We are not our trauma. It's these mornings that remind me of that, because that's when I can feel that, in both of us. He's not Perfect, I'm not Plague. He's Chaos 0. I'm Jewel Lightraye. He's peace, I'm joy. He's strength and I'm heart and we're both love, absolutely and always.
I'm also exhausted. But it's been a good day. There is glitter in the dark. There are roses in the winter. There is love in my heart, as red as a ruby, and I believe that life is worth living and no matter what tomorrow brings I know I have this, I have him. We have us. I have you, my beloved blue angel, I adore you and I'm yours, too. Je t'aime, je t'aime, je t'aime, forever.
