You're using me, he said. You'll just take what you need and go away. The meanwhile, I'll be wasting away to nothing. Nothing - do you hear me? Are you even listening?

She wasn't listening. But that was not entirely her fault. She had heard this song before, and it was all starting to sound like the noise of some meadow insect, rubbing its legs together in summertime nighttime comfort. She heard the noise, but she had stopped collecting the letters. Hmm? she hummed, buzzing in the prebirth glow of all motherhood, all mothers everywhere. What were you saying? I wasn't listening.

I said you're losing sleep. You've got to take better care of yourself. How can you expect to have healthy babies if you don't get your rest? He nuzzled into the softness of his response, and gave up fighting his better nature. He understood the essence of his relationship to this girl. She was everything he ever wanted, but to have her meant sacrificing a part of himself. Each time something in him rose to the level of a stipulation, something else in him, something more powerful, hushed him back down. Now, as they continued to try to begin a family, the instinct for survival offered a few fleeting thoughts.

Why am I always the one who has to give? If this is a true partnership, why do you always get to take? he thought he said, nestled in her nooks and hair.

She stopped fluttering beautifully by his side, and he saw at once, the awful power words can have. Slipping back into sweet nothings wished upon her ears, he muffled words which sounded like apple peach cobbler and roygbiv, a ship of fools to eat a cake, or Spaniards dashed upon the beach.

Huhnn? she moaned. What was that? Back she sank into a pleasure haze, and gladly accepted all that he had to offer her. He, like so many others who had fallen in muted protest, went on living his dying life, sped by love or lust and the heart's soft voice.

by Timothy Gillis