And so my story winds on down toward an ending that's been found to come whenever all is said and done. I've lived my life and taken chances and if some were strange by standards that were less important than my needs, then I guess I could be crooked, evil, bent and twisted, looking down upon the strings I tried to pull. But I see the strings extending up and down and never ending as we dance around our selves and jerk to all the tunes that only we hear and the voices only we fear each inside an island all alone. But the contact that we do make, as we give and take abuse, stays and its value only multiplies. Yes I'm alone, but not forgotten, for each comes and sees me often, sitting on a seat beside my bed, and we laugh and reminisce about a life that once was bliss before an act of passion made us part. Of course they'll always be together, but their bond is made of leather not the flesh and blood it used to be. They're still full of life and healing, but it has a different feeling and only for the few that seek their sort of pain and pleasure when they merge and give into insistent urgency that lives for seconds at a time. For pain and pleasure are the twins that slightly out of focus spin around us till we finally understand that everything that gives us pleasure also gives us pain to measure it by, and I also realize...that all our lives we love illusion, neatly caught between confusion and the need to know we are alive.