You have woken up in his bed every morning for a year. After he persuades himself inside you for the fifth time this hour, you motion to the heap of clothes on the floor. To the shower and the towel. To both your boots and the metro cards on his nightstand. The beckoning day. You are thinking of adding vanilla extract to his pancake batter. Of the places outside his big city window you have not yet seen together. Of twirling his hair in your lap as he says genius and hilarious things in a park somewhere, in the sun. He asks Where do you think you’re going, Miss? And the story does not change. He has never, and will not now snatch your wrist. Will not smack a chorus of yeses from you like resuscitating a jukebox. You are a girl, and you have learned to bargain your way with laughter before. But this morning your giggle is a foreign currency he won’t accept. You explain the soreness between your legs. How the well has dried up. Feels like three dry cotton rags are folded inside you. Your body needs a break. But the story does not change. He does not yank you by the ponytail. There is no hand stretched over your mouth like duct tape. There never was and there won’t be now. Instead, he pours a cup of guilt. Says you are a feast and he, the famine. How selfish it would be to hoard such muscle. You explain a second time: five cotton rags folded inside. Dry as licking cinnamon and sand. Pain, you say. A small rip. But he doesn’t tear open your dress. Does not palm your shoulder. He never did, and he isn’t going to now. Rather, he says If our appetites don’t align, we probably will not work. You beg, cry, say five times already this morning, baby. Pain. Rip. Cinnamon and sand rags. He says Probably will not work. He doesn’t lift a finger, but smirks as you throw yourself down. As you pin your own shoulder back. Wrench open your two legs. Split your favorite dress on purpose. As you rip.