Skins

"She'll want to take the sun between her teeth and smother it under her tongue: there's more night to be had, and it's not time for morning; no, there's more night to be had, and she's determined to take every dark ounce of it before the sun burns her mouth and she'll at last sleep while the other wakes and walks with the sun on its head like a big bright bug" (Tilus, 168)

I will not say that I am two different people, because I am not; but I possess two different skins, or rather, I possess one skin, and if the far edges of each side were to be compared, one would find them quite different. And there is always so much slack between them that one side gets curled up and the pattern is hardly ever seen.

I am very much in love with shadows
That is to say, a part of me is.

And so it only makes sense that that part of me that likes shadows will follow them when they come out, right? And even if it is such a small thing that is attached to shadows--just a nail clipped on to the very edge of one side of the skin. if the nail reaches for the shadows, it pulls the rest of the skin with it, those patterns that are closest and most similar to it, but perhaps, if it is enticed enough, or must reach far enough, it will take some of the pattern from the other side as well--the patterns are not distinct, but from each end, gradually change ten times over before they push into each other quite perfectly. There is no line to be drawn between the one and the other.
Eitherwho, the point of this being--if there is something that is drawn to shadows, it will be drawn out by shadows. It does not replace, it does not clamp down or kill what was there before. It probably wouldn't even get so far if the other side weren't pleasantly tired, and thus inclined to hand the baton over and take a nap. When I am awake at night, a part of me is sleeping; when I am awake during the day, a part of me is still sleeping. Different part now, though; a different edge of my skin has turned. I am a turncoat. But there are shadows in the day and lights at night, always--and so there are always parts and corners of the sleeping pattern untucked and still awake. Again, the transition between the pattern is not a clear, clean one; if it was, the skin would not be able to hold itself together, and would hardly be useful in that form. But this way, this...this works lovely fine. I may wrap myself in one side more than another for a time, but I am both. I think I may even take more pleasure in one than the other; but still, I am both. It makes me love more; hate more; feel more; sleep more; stay awake moar. The two patterns trade stories and talk when they meet and switch off in the middle, somewhere at the nape of my neck--that is where stories meet; that is where, between nights and days, I am sewn up, right along the seams of my escaping shadow.