When it happened to me, I didn’t get out, at least not at first. Predictably, the reality of domestic violence is far more complicated. The thought, “I should leave him” occurred to me at least a hundred times before I ever attempted it, and I even tried to end the relationship twice before I was able to sever it for good. It takes an average of seven attempts for a victim of intimate partner violence to get out of the relationship. It isn’t easy. When it comes down to it, I think we need to reframe the question.

For many in gym culture, this is the point where things can get very toxic. “If you wanna get big, you gotta eat big!”, “Train hard to get hard!”, and so on. Next thing you know, you’re eating until you’re uncomfortable, ever chasing the “pump”, all while trying to cover over a deep, amorphous something-nothingness. It’s not all bad, and I’m not trying to be dramatic, but as I was in the thick of becoming a competitive powerlifter, I started to see how this hobby can quickly become an unhealthy culture.

As I waited for my mother to arrive to pick me up, I was lost in a repetitive thought cycle of the steps required to land an Ollie. Bend the knees. Pop the tail with back foot. Turn front foot to the side and drag it up to the nose. Level out. Bend. Pop. Turn. Drag. Again. And again. I was obsessed. I was reborn.

Tirzah’s Devotion has a strange ability (much like Frank Ocean’s whole discography) to tackle all of the messiness that comes with romance in a groovy but insightful and emotional way.