I wept all the way from Dingwall to Glasgow; as I told my friends, there were no gasps or quaking shoulders, just streams of broken fable flowing down my face. You watched when I split myself open and pulled out the essence of my being: the good, the bad, thoughts and memories, metaphors and mythos.

I gave you everything in my being and I asked you to be gentle, and you told me that I was beautiful. I was worthwhile. I was smart and fun, valuable, even treasured. You wanted my heart, you wanted my life.

You were always witty, funny, eloquent. Technical. Fascinating. You looked at me with the most heart-rending smirk when you were joking with me, you looked into my soul when we conversed. I could give you nothing less than everything, and I watched you blossom from fragile vulnerability, tragic victimization, into a vital and confident man with each of what seemed like inconsequential reassurances.

You told me I was beautiful, down to my essence. Then you changed your mind.

You tore down all my faith and fable from the top down: I was unimportant, irrelevant, my thoughts and feelings were scorned. For two years my words bled out from my feet, left me weak and pale, gasping and asphyxiating like a fish, and still you tore further into my core to pull out my reason for remaining, my reason for being.

My ability to see unicorns.

I still always saw in you the gentle country boy who had stroked my hair, eased every hurt; the boy I'd helped mend and who had, slowly, built me up to believe that I was something. I always saw in you the promises I made and the values I held, the beauty that I wanted to give back a thousand fold, and I believed that he could simply no longer see the unicorn nature that I held as well, so I thought that if I tossed my head or pranced or hooved at the glass hard enough, he would also break through and take me in his arms and help me make everything alright.

You tore everything that was me away and let me limp off in broken disgrace, a failed wife and an ineffectual unicorn.

I lost three homes in one month for no bad behavior of my own; I smiled through it and swept the floor after being accused of being an uncaring, conniving daughter that did nothing to help her sick father. The only words I had to give were "Maybe if I leave grace in my wake, it will spread."

I rode a three hour commute daily for a minimum wage job. I pulled up tiles for temporary housing. I told everyone that I was broken, but managing, and didn't need sympathy. I told everyone that the circumstances, while difficult, were manageable.

I moved, and I looked for unicorns, and I could see none.

Finally, I saw a good friend carted away for a crime he didn't commit and had already served the allotted time for. I called out for a temporary escape, and I was flown to Scotland.

I spoke to the only stable family I've ever had, and they said they'd keep me no matter what; they had me for dinner two nights in a row and looked at pictures of my new mate.

I cleaned out our honeymoon cottage for sale, requested the strike of the belt on my rear, and turned down cunnilingus.

And I wept all the way from Dingwall to Glasgow, no gasps or shaking shoulders, just tears streaming down my face as I reflected on how you took me away from myself.