The Talk

Come here, sweetheart, sit down next to mamma. You’re getting older, and there’re some things I’d like to tell you.

You’ll notice, soon, a small rip on the left side of your head, starting up above your hairline and going down, past your chin, to your neck. Don’t worry, it’s not dangerous. It’s something all women go through. It means you’re growing up, sweetheart!

I had my first rip, just a small tear actually, when I was thirteen, in the summer. It didn’t hurt, not even when the woman began to crawl out, limb by limb. She was a little bloody, of course, as she had been living for all those years in my frontal lobe, but the brain has no nerve endings, so I really didn’t feel a thing.

When the woman begins to make her way out of the rip, love, when you can hear her fingernails clawing on the inside of your head, please don’t be scared. Like I said, it’s all perfectly natural. Listen to the woman, be polite, remember your please and thankyous. She’s here to help, if you let her.

You are young, my darling, and though the rapid rate of growth of your bones thus far may convince you otherwise, you are not Progress incarnate. No. Just like me, you will bleed once, but that does not mean you are done bleeding. The woman will crawl out, and then she will crawl back in again for a little while, when she’s tired and needs to rest. You are not progress, no, you are circles, seasons, orbits, and waves. You will continue to rip open, to bleed and heal, heal and bleed, for the rest of your life, however long that is.