Fraying

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.