Dent, Vent, Repent

Let it be known that love will always begin and end like this: it hit, it hurt, oh, but it heal.

Dent

Fist and knuckle marks on your teenage bedroom wall. The first drops of blood in your pubescent panties. Somethings will change your life, and other things? … Those things will just hit for a minute. Have you learnt how to tell them apart? Baby girl, I know you'll believe in a thing called lust. Your mother won't stop you when you go to leave home. You'll show up at his apartment with a holdall and a heart heavy with dreams. You’ll push his folded bedding to one side, fill his wardrobes with your jackets and shoes, place your toothbrush on his sink, pick a side of the bed, rest your head on his chest, and tell him, "honey, I'm home." And for the first ten days he'll reply, "baby, I'm glad." With your hands on his shoulders, your eyes set his, you'll let him speak: "I love you," he'll say. "You're my woman," he'll say. "You're the future," he'll say. And of course you'll believe him. I believed him too. Hush. Wrap your legs 'round his hips and enjoy him while he lasts.

Vent

Here’s a postcard from Cloud Nine: Tell your friends you know he'll hurt you. And, oh, he’ll hurt you with his wickedest trick: silence. How many words does the average man speak? Does he speak fewer words than a woman? (Three times less.) You’ll notice a quiet follows him around. No, wait... It's the silence. Thick, heavy, bleak; thick, heavy, bleak. (Three times less.) On Monday night he'll come home and fill the room with it. He’ll smells of beer, smokes, and expired sadness. You've turned off the television, lit candles, put Prosecco in the freezer. But there were only so many rounds of Mortal Kombat you could play before you found yourself ready to fight real humans. But wait, wait, is that true? Haven’t you change? You used to be impatient, impulsive, impetuous? You used to blink too hard, figdet with fingers and hair, twitch your ankles as a rule, but you’ve changed? Now, for him you're a saint. (But are you serene or sterile? I’ll let you decide.) So, when he comes home, my little saint, he'll sit on the sofa, turn the television back on, and politely kiss your cheek. Yet, what he really wants to do is tell you that he's still in love with her. But, for now, he'll say nothing at all. (Three times less.)

Repent

On your knees, at his feet, tell him the truth. Your chest has ached with the difficulty of discipline, of caging your tongue, sweetly smiling, just nodding instead. So let my tears serve as my letter of resignation. Baby, I have stopped believing that loving you any longer or any harder will help you become the man that I need you to be. Yes, that truth will climb out from your ass and into your head. Eventually. The platitudes are tiring: “Boys will be boys. Men will be men.” In light of it, they taught you to be a certain kind of woman: the healer. You're white magic, uh: soft palms that calm palpations, fingertips that melt temples, kisses like the season's first ripe fig (sweet, pink-lipped blossom). Out you go into the world! Out with your book of spells, pressed into your pretty lips. Can you cure the curse? Don't. You cannot heal a cobra of its venom. You must understand that the cobra needs it to survive. Leave.