The Key.

I have found how to be happy with a man: Give him no credit. None. Make deliberate, cold, unceasing assumptions that he has no feelings, that he cares for you in no way, and that he will never do you one good thing. Be content in the fact that he has no heart. No desires that stretch beyond his own body.

You will find happiness, just so long as you never let go of these basic understandings. You can enjoy that stupid way he smiles when you kiss. The freckles that pepper his shoulders. You can fall in love with his inconsistencies - while always being sure of his one consistent nature, to never truly love you back.
Do this. Because when you find, with devastating clarity, that you have been wrong, and that his heart is just as prone to feeling as your own damaged soul, your world will shatter. You will have lost everything saving you from the hell that awaits you when you wake up and realize that he can.
Do this. Because without it, you will see his failures, each shortcoming. You will want more than he will give. You will be continually brought to the very edge of what you can bear - and then brought back too abruptly by some sweeping act of redemption. He will cease to be able to keep you constantly satisfied, it will be a life of ups and downs, weeks of dinner for two followed by months of smashed plates and weepy kisses. His faults will seep through in the morning coffee that he left too long, they will creep their way through the unfixed cracks in the wall paint, they will call your name when the game is going and he wants another beer. 

Do this. Before his humanity stretches your heart in new ways that you wouldn't have thought capable, before he drives you so crazy with the amount he can be everything you've ever wanted and still not enough, before you let him so far up on that pedestal that he only has room to let you down. Do this, so you know he's lying when he whispers those three cliché, stupid, stupid, stupid words in your ear, so softly that it tickles. Do this, do this, do this. Find that easy, safe, and endlessly stale happiness. Or don't. And open up a world that is full and meaningful and frustrating and so so worth it. 

S. 

{Photo: Flickr Kari Devereaux}