“To Give Yourself Over in the Name of Love” by Avien Howell
You came knocking a few nights after you were expelled, wringing your gloved hands. I barely recognized you, without the crook in your nose and your brown eyes and the beauty mark that used to dot your temple, all done up in swaths of fabric so only your face was bare. You sat down to tell me a story, and when you paused, I could hear the thump of your heart in your unusually flat chest, unmuffled.
You met her at a party, drinking shitty beer in red solo cups and dancing to shitty 2000s pop. She took you into a spare room and showed you what love can feel like. You were hooked. (And you say that with a hitch in your breath. Hooked, like a worm, like a fish. Like prey.)
You next saw her in a coffee shop, then a record store, then a class. She had you in a bathroom, an alley, your apartment. She gave you more than anyone in your wildest dreams, and soon you could only dream of her. You started to notice missing things. A mole here, a freckle there. Your body, once familiar, was becoming strange.
Her body, once strange, was becoming familiar.
You confronted her.
“It’s a curse,” you explain, plead, “She has to take them, you see. And I can help! I can fix her.”
She started to ask, shyly, then outright. First a wrinkle, then a freckle, then your piercing, your frown, your blonde hair.
Your classmates don’t recognize you anymore. Your professors mark you absent.
Your smile, your creaking laugh, the birthmark you share with your mother- she doesn’t ask, anymore.
That’s alright — she loves you; you’d give her anything.
“It’s getting worse, I don’t have much left to give her and she’s getting worse. I need to break her curse.”
I ask where she is. You tell me she’s waiting outside. I look at your skinny jeans, flat against the couch, and know she’s standing with your legs.
“I can’t help you,” I say, and with no frown the disappointment in your smooth stranger’s face is easy to ignore, “I’m no good with curses.”
“She’s consuming you,” I don’t say, “Soon she’ll take your voice and your buckteeth and all that will be left of you will be these empty clothes.”
I don’t tell you, “It’s too late.”
Instead, I help you out the door. I lead you to your loving arms, attached to the woman on the front stoop wearing your smile, the crook in your nose and your brown eyes and the beauty mark that used to dot your temple, and I let you go.
The next time I see you, it’s with your freckles and curves back. The next time I see you, it’s her.
That’s alright, because I wasn’t the one you meant to speak to either.
About Avien Howell
He/Him/His
Avien is pursuing a bachelor's degree in English at MSU Denver. He was born and raised in Colorado, and still lives there with his three cats. He's a big fan of finding magic in the mundane.