You never told me how many hours you'd spent trying to kill yourself. But I admired your dedication. The way you explained your failures made it see like death was not a goal but a skill you needed to master.

I found safety in that. Because when I first said that I'd murder you, it was only for my lack of understanding. I'd yet to learn of other ways to get inside you.

Your evolution was circular and perhaps beyond me. When I obsessed over your body, I felt young. When I talked of love and marriage, I thought that I'd grown up. But you took part in these rituals with me. You held my hands and whispered our future softly. I thought I spoke for both of us when I said, “Catharsis is a child's game.”

Then you opened a hole in your skin and soaked our mattress with the last of your life.

I might have remembered the past and marveled at your craft. But a fog had overcome me. After weeping, I wrote words for you. One of them was, “Coward.” Strange, then, that I lacked the courage to touch your corpse.

I knelt in the corner of our room and tried to repurpose your life as a timeline of events that had led to my loss.

What did you feel the first time a man spread your ass and said that you were beautiful? Or did he even use that word?

I used to think of my first john as equal to yours. But the man who paid for my sex must have seen a part of himself reflected back. He allowed me, pressed beneath him, to discover my self-esteem. The man who purchased your cunt must have thought of you as something different: a territory he'd yet to conquer.

I knew my assumption was flawed. Not all heterosexual fucking was violence. But I'd found you in that fashion. You told me how you preferred a man with blood on his hands.

Thousands of years of evolution and culture welled up in me. I was strong because you were a woman and I could hit you. Weak, because I felt the misogyny of my body and had no urge to resist. I thought to compensate by going further. As I could quell my violence by creating new holes in you to fuck.

“I'm helping,” I'd say, because I knew how much you wanted to die. But I grew comfortable with your skin and plotted to keep it warm. I watched you cut yourself, and then covered you with bandages. When I hurt you worse, it was with days planned to bring you back to health.

You took me to a film and I believed, for the first time, that you'd never leave me. I watched you cry in the theater and hold a hand to your chest. Because you saw two people pretend to fall in love and grow old together. When it was over, you said, “I'm addicted to this feeling.”

I paid for your meal that night, and we made love after. You left the bed sweating and without bruises. It wasn't so swift a change, but our lives become more like this: overcome by simple pleasures.

You said, “One day, we'll build a home together,” and meant for it in our world. Not the one where we'd be ghosts.

I taught myself new skills so that this future might be possible. Because I'd only learned the art of youth: to fuck and be fucked. You needed a man who'd survive longer than his value as a hustler.

I'd come home from my new labor, and you'd tell me about your day. You had more words to share than I could ever think of. I never learned to ask for more.

A transition came upon us; years that should have lead to longer life. Love was mentioned slowly. You were meant to be my wife. All the time I touched you, it was less and less severe.

When you began to ration your thoughts, I believed you'd just grown tired. And when you'd go to bed with socks, it was because the air was cold. You wore shirts some nights, and then traded them for long sleeves and sweaters. When you'd fall asleep that way, I'd wonder what you meant when you talked about your life and said it was fine and good.

Once, I touched your arm while you slept. You winced the same as when I used to carve off pieces of your skin. I didn't want to believe that I'd discovered your life outside of me. So I made sure to wake you as I peeled back the sleeve from your arm.

You said, “I burnt myself on the oven and cut away the blisters before they could rot.”

But I knew your injury was of a different sort. I recognized it as the kind a man might make if he both loved and hated you. It lacked the aesthetic of the marks you'd inflicted on yourself.

Could I have saved you if I said something other than, “Be careful?” Should I have waited outside our apartment instead of gone to work? Would you have kissed me if I returned with the head of the man who'd meant to purchase your flesh?

I left without asking myself such questions. Instead, I sat at my desk and dreamt of a future in which my violence was further tamed and you were left without a need for broken skin.

When I returned home, you said, “I tried to kill myself today.”

I smiled and said, “You try so hard.” Then I brushed your hair instead of hit you. I took a shower when I could bathed in the tears from your face.