Dear Romeo, I used to crave you. In Real Life. Used to think that you’d climb into my heart, conquer my thorn encrusted rose garden. Done. I’d be hooked on phonics (works for me). You’d comfort me sweetly, mon amour, husshhh, mon amour. Drop the mother f-ing L-BOMB every other minute. And I’d eat it up—like mango chutney, all tastes tickled and satisfied. It was a fantasy I sunk my teeth into—made it into a mold. Tried it on, whored it around. That was my happy med. BELIEVING IN the power of YOU, Romeo.

But here I stand in aftertaste of romance. Now the make-believe has worn away, and I no longer long for your presence. You left me dry on the inside. Cottonmouth core—cheeks sucking in desperately for even a drop of gooey satisfaction. Please, please me? No more.

I’ve stopped looking for you, Romeo. Repulsed. I resent your formula, your scent. But there is something about this guy that makes me want to stare deeply-in-him. To see and be seen. Is this YOU again, Romeo? Or do I just feel like I owe him? I am regenerating thanks to him. I feel it. I am renewing. But I have nothing to give back. I can’t spoil him like I want to. Make him feel like the magic that he is. No, I can’t. I’ve been stripped, crushed, impounded. I don’t even have the hootsva to pretend again… the possibility that I will once again be disappointed in love, in men, is too terrifying. I may never recover from that…final…blow.

He doesn’t know how damaged I am, Romeo. And I feel like I am using him for my own survival, because this isn’t a balanced arrangement. Because I am plum-diggity out of currency to exchange. And he doesn’t know how damaged I am. He doesn’t know how damaged I am.

Oh intimacy… the ugly bits all come out—and I’m afraid. Afraid that I’ll discover that it was me, not M, all along. That there is something irreconcilably wrong with me as “girlfriend”. Afraid of who I am as girlfriend now that I cannot and will not be THE giver. Will I be worth anything? Peanuts even?

Hi. Jodi here. I would like to be completely nourished by L.O.V.E. And I don’t want any expectations of return anything. Oh and can that be fed to me ON DEMAND and independent of my mental state or attitude?  Yes? Okay, cool. I’ll have that. With a side order of rock-my-life-chemistry. Check please.

Here is the thing about believing in you, Romeo—at its core, it’s about trusting what I cannot sense with my physical body. It’s about giving in, giving up control. Stepping onto the ride and allowing myself to be a passenger of love. Disabling my anal retentive side from launching forward and grabbing the steering wheel and screaming out, left at the light, you fucker. Just ride… Flow…

But you burned me, Romeo, and I don’t want to let you back into the driver’s seat. Maybe the thing is not to trust in Romeo, in romance, in men or in love. Maybe the thing is to trust in you, Ms. Dey. To respond, to react, to recover, regardless of the journey, the detours, the mechanical or judgment errors.

Yesssss, trust in you. And so it is…