you'll probably triple guess the meaning behind the bulk of her conversation. when you've settled on what she must have meant, you'll be slightly off. she always means more than one thing. even in the way she says goodbye, it's never just 'goodbye' that she's saying.

the thing you'll keep forgetting is that she's never the same woman as the last time you remembered her, and she's certainly far removed from the first time. she can't be pin-pointed, but she can be caught. all it takes is giving her whatever she needs of you at those crucial moments when your head is sure you should flee.

you can't ever expect to find an easy answer to that question you keep asking her, 'what do you want from me?', because it isn't fixed and it doesn't translate. just keep on your toes enough to know that you'll need to do something different every time in order to keep her happy. and remember that you keep reminding her that the only way for you to be happy is to know she is happy. you'll have to believe that enough to make it come true, or she'll smell the lie on you like another woman's scent.

she'll never admit when she's happy, you'll just have to recognize it silently. if you point it out, her smile might fade as she quickly remembers all of the reasons she's always inches from insanity. you can't help but love her more than life when she's smiling at you and her eyes twinkle with tender thoughts. you want nothing more than to be near her then and to hear and feel and know how much she loves you.

there will be wonderful times that seem to last forever, but there will also be those beautiful times that turn altogether ugly at the slightest brush of a trigger. you won't even know you were holding a weapon until you've said whatever it was that shot her right through the heart. you'll be all apologies but that won't matter. she'll freeze up and you'll watch the life fade from her eyes. this is the worst of it, this recurrent death. you'll never be sure of how long this catatonia will last. you'll try to say anything you can think of that will snap her out of it and into the hysterical fit of rage that always follows.

afterwards, you'll marvel at how you'd rather see her yelling, cursing, hitting, degrading than falling silent as stone. at least when she unleashes her anger, it's targeting you. the first thing you learned about who she is rather than who you thought she was is that she self-destructs in silence. the next thing you learned is that the blows she throws at you are meant for herself. you're protecting her from the worst of herself and you sometimes wonder if she realizes that. she does, but never in the heat of the moment.

it's that kind of protection that eventually conditioned her to fight for love instead of flee. this is how you caught her and this is why she still loves you unconditionally. but this is not what makes her happy. what makes her happiest is whatever makes her forget the involuntary chokehold she has on your own happiness and whatever makes her smile once in a while.

once in a while it will be because of you.

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