Full moon is coming.  I feel it tugging, feel the first below-the-skin shift and murmur of mutable flesh.

You know the hardest thing?

It isn’t organising someone to cover the job for the duration.  In the beginning, yes, made some bad choices, came back to chaos.  Not so much now.

It isn’t the way people start to watch you out of the corner of their eyes, the way hands creep a little closer to hilts, the way people you trust with your back in a street fight no longer, quite, trust you with theirs.  They’re right, and you know it.

It isn’t feeling yourself losing words, concepts, the ability to think past the next threat or meal.

It isn’t even knowing that you could hurt people, random innocents or people you love, if you didn’t get yourself locked in that damn cage until the sky stops shining.

It’s how good it feels, when it bites deep – that tip before the spill, knowing you’re about to stop caring, feeling all the complexity and sorrow and mortal terror of being human about to spin away like dust on the wind.

Wondering if you’ll come back.

Wondering if you want to.