the women who replace you

a darkhouse x club reticent collaboration

her skin flows gently across her body like calla lilies.

soft, delicate, a delicacy.

her eyes are dark, like captured rivers. within them you’ll find gold among gray pebbles, softened by her gaze. she looks at you with a kindness you don’t deserve.

she has a constellation of moles on her cheeks as if heaven itself is trapped within her face. her hair is woven from the memories of her mother’s mother. her heart is like crushed velvet, and her love is plush.

she is the perfect replacement.

she is everything i’m not.

she is everything you’re not.

---

it’s a mirror ritual, and i’ll dress my part. chronicles, dignified, i’m staring at the reflection of somebody who’s loved deeply, unconditionally. putting on lipstick. gratitude overwhelm. giddy and almost childlike, the way i’ve planned what i’ll wear days before. not to impress you, wouldn’t that be silly – we’re far past the stage of impressing each other. and why would i try? you already know me too well: how my errors and faulty beliefs orbit around me, my weight going up and down every year defined and measured by what i’m burdened with, or that time i made a bad decision and you were kind enough to tell the bitter truth. we can do double denim with kitten heels and glossy eyelids or matching monochrome. it doesn’t matter because we adore each other. because you’ve granted me the greatest gift of all: being seen.

---

your blood drips from the blade, her blood is smeared on the hilt.

blinded by arrogance,

dirt under your fingernails, you never saw her coming.

she laces her fingers into mine and pulls me from the pit you dug for me. 

she removes the daggers you’ve placed into my heart and your mischief returns upon your own head. your rotten blood spills into the soil, even the worms turn away from you.

the pit you dug for me will be your grave.

a pit of loneliness,

fruitlessness,

and disconnection. 

all that you wished for me is now yours. you will be haunted by my smile, and i won’t think of you, at all.

bound by blood and time, she is mine, and i am hers,

and you

are nothing.

---

in hindsight and in vain, everything i’ve ever thought i wanted from men has been given to me by the women in my life. controversial? hardly so. this isn’t a matter of platonic and romantic, nor is it a matter of unlabeled sexuality. it’s bigger and holier than attraction. programmed to take in as little or as much as you’re granted, with men, you can always count on getting close enough to having the thing, but never fully. unsafe territory, grey areas, steep slopes. always tiptoeing, talking yourself down or needing to grab his hand just to prove to yourself he cares. he might, or he might not: it’ll never be in a way that you understand anyway. he’s out of reach enough to want him, but not convincing enough to care. 

and there she is. golden, shiny. baking, drawing, making calls, or pouring me a glass of wine. her presence is palpable even when she’s not here. she listens to me softly as she waters her plants, and she doesn’t need me to perform liturgies or dance around my candor to ease her ego. she’s complex; i’m complex, too. i don’t have to put on a show where i’m more agreeable or palatable of a woman – in the comfort of her living room, i’m enough with all my mess. we open ourselves up fully, unafraid of the ugliness that might spill out — the worst thing that can happen is we both get a little too honest for our liking. 

at her house, i feel safe. and isn’t safety what we’re all after? not the kind that comes with locking the door at night: the kind of safety you feel when you know a woman’s kitchen is a haven open for you at your worst laid plan and in your best sparkle. we dress up for cocktails and dress down for wisdom. when we go out to a restaurant, i’m not anxious about the bread or butter. when i tell a story, i’m not microanalyzing her reaction. when we get back home and my lifeless, tired body wants to sink into her sofa, i know i can do that. there will be a cup of tea at the end of the longest night. she is theirs and noble, playful and mine.

---

i know love is real because of the women who love me.

the women who replaced you.

the women who the saints placed by my side to hold my bloodied hand after losing many battles with demons. the women whose eyes met mine and, in an instant, chose to live and die with me.

and, i know

i’d rather die in their arms than yours. in their arms, i know i am loved. in their arms, i know daggers will not slip into my heart in the middle of the night. in their arms, i know i will be carried to lie down in green pastures.

for many years, i offered my heart on a plate to be devoured by insatiable men. convinced that if i don’t let them eat me alive, i’ll die lonely. as God made a woman the cure for a man’s loneliness, a man surely cannot be the cure for mine. you pray your absence creates a void, but it doesn’t. you beg me to miss the crumbs you left on the floor for me, when there’s a woman who feeds me cake.

---

you’re a hard worker, a great daughter and sister, and just the notion of having you around keeps hope on my nightstand when i’m not alright. sometimes i lack the words to describe the enormity of the love you entrust everybody in your life, the axis of generosity i’m lucky to be tethered to. i don’t know much about the world, but i know you are everything i wish i was and everything i’m proud to have. 

i used to think i’d die for love, but now i see it clear as day: there’s no need to die for something that breathes life into you when you flatline. the women in my life want me true and strong, with color in my cheeks, never brittle and bruised. this love is boundless, filling my head with pretty thoughts, my character with reason, my lungs with oxygen. when my pulse is weak and my headaches are many, i know where to call. 

the women in my life made me who i am today. it’s laughable how the world wants me to believe they should take second place after the men i date when she’s my emergency contact and he’d be the last to know if i got hurt. when she’s known me at my worst and he only wants me at my best. when she keeps my body warm and fed and he needs it on a platter. when she looks right through my soul while he can hardly read the room.

in the end, i might like what he represents, but i love what she is. i might enjoy him, but she is joy. and i might want him to like me, but i need her to see me.

we hope you enjoy this ode to female friendship & sisterhood written in collaboration between asa riah and Valerie. subscribe to our respective newsletters darkhouse & club reticent and share this post with a woman who loves you <3