We invest so much emotional energy into the strength of our masks, our armours of fiesty verve.

Of course after so long it becomes a part of you, a sort of crusty, leathery second skin -- which you're aware of yourself.

And because of that gloved numbness, sometimes you let your guard down a bit too much, yearning for that primal contact of soul and soul, devoid of masquerade and chainmail. And expose ourselves to risk & pain.

A writer's imagination has a far richer inner life than he does, is more able to explore possibilities and probabilities, indeed, becomes stronger with danger, traverses the knife-edge between the hard line of what is and the infinite reaches of what might be. The spirit of art has no moral code, no conscience, no shackles of obligation or flesh. That is its strength and its weakness.

But we are of course, creatures of flesh as well as of spirit, and the bonds of this world lay claim on us in ways we may never fully understand.

Which is to say, I wonder if restless souls like ours are better off resorting to word-lust and sentence-fever than 'real-life' relationships of any sort.

Easier said than done, when the night bites into our unloved thighs, our arms uncovered and untouched feel raw in the open wind, and the heart's furtive pounding lies unanswered by the echo of another's breath.