The Puzzle by Rachel Thompson You tell me I’m quiet. I nod, attempting to comprehend my disbelief. Yet, you still need something from me; as a young son, after he crayons the wall, looks for his mother‘s approval; as a cat lays a dead bird, with it’s face forever frozen in a mask of stark surprise, at its owner’s feet. “I just watched you break a man’s leg, because I was cold, so cold. You did that for me,” I say, still in shock at your raw brutality, this memory already threatening to crush us with its own hard rain. I can’t put those two utterly separate states together, yet somehow it was clear in your mind that those two puzzle pieces fit together. “I don’t understand your violence--it makes no sense to me,” I tell you, shaking my head. “How can I love you when you can hurt with a fleeting snap, inflicting pain like that? I watched you transform into someone else--I don't know who, what, you became. What are you hoping to get from me? I'm not a princess in need of a castle, here to worship at your feet.” I feel my heart closing so tightly that I unconsciously clutch my hand to my chest. You reach for me and hug me so tightly, envelope me with your charms. “You know I’m protective of you,” I hear you whisper through soft lips, that way you do. “I did everything for you, babe,” you breathe quietly into my bare neck, as your hands play slowly up and down my body, trying to warm me. “We had been waiting out in that snowy, cold air, in this crazy New Year’s town, for an hour,” you remind me. “Standing in line like good little soldiers for a damn taxi and that drunk fuck tries to cut in and take our cab? What was the hell was I supposed to do? Jesus, your hands were turning blue! The best place for that asshole was in a hospital anyway--I did him a favor,” you tell me in a hard, derisive voice. I’m awed at how you have so easily rationalized that sound, that sickening crack that I won’t soon forget. How once again you try to cover me with your blanket of soothing caresses, tattered threads I can no longer wear. I know you want me to lay my arms down and surrender to you, melt into your heat as I inevitably do, as I always do. Let go this struggle, make me feel your burning skin, and forget--like you want me to--each time, for you. Believe that the man who is so tenderly touching me now, who has never laid a hand on me in anger, won’t someday crack the glass of calm again, only then--it will be me. “How is it possible that these same hands that love me can be responsible for such ruthless damage?” I ask you as I brush your hands away. “What you did repelled me,” I explain. “Clearly not the reaction you were hoping for; no, not this time. This raging storm I see inside you, well…” I shake my head. “It is the push that pulled me back.” “You want me to turn it all around and believe this love is real,” I tell you, knowing in my heart as I say it that something is missing. “I wanted you--us--for so long; I don’t want to say more words, hear your words. I’ve felt so loved in your hands, and now that is gone,” I cry and turn away. “I can’t look at you anymore.” “I would never hurt you,” you pull me close and murmur between gentle kisses, and I know you mean it, as surely as you know that the bright light of the sun will rise in the morning. Yet I see so clearly now--you only have so much to give. Faith has left us--I only had so much in me, and there’s no longer enough for you. We no longer fit.　 I inhale deep, aching breaths of you, though my heart is now as cold as a flat, black stone skimmed across the glassy surface of a smooth, dark lake. I leave you in our torn bed, feel those crystal blue eyes lingering on me; and slowly, so slowly, gather up my clothing, scattered around the room like pieces of my heart. “Yes, I’m cold and shivering, but it is no longer from the frigid air. You broke that poor man’s leg, but it is I that will never heal.”