When she loathes me, I know it. Jabs and slurs: her rapturous melodies. Her words are harsh and unyielding, but they burn in front of me in full view. Even so, she fences with a ghost assailant, cutting right through me but never landing. Still, she slices away, leaving nothing to the imagination. She is unrelenting, tells me I am evil and quiet, calculating and uncommunicative, there but not. At least, she says, you know my pain. At least, she says, I share it with you. She tells me it’s our pain now because she wants it to be. She wants to share it, wants to share something, wants to share anything, so that maybe we can land back on common ground. What’s wrong? she asks, poking, prodding, pushing her bones next to mine as if she can knit them together, as if we are not already suffocatingly close, as if I cannot taste her thoughts on my breath, as if she can jump into me when the time is right, when my mouth opens and her golden ticket appears. Still I say nothing so she asks again and again and again. It’s a fevered pitch, an angry hum, a symphony. Watch me, I dare, as I blur my edges and shift my hues, shifting my face from her view. We’re sinking, love. Tell me why, then, she pleads, but I can be unrelenting, unyielding too. I let her wonder because I know that she has solutions, but I like being unanswerable.