ABOUT THE POEM: Chapter 16 functions as the speaker's final, devastating analysis of the relational market, moving from the general philosophical critique of earlier chapters to a specific, painful forensic examination of his failures. The chapter is structured to answer the implied question: Why does the speaker, a man of "character," remain in ruins? The answer is found in the failure of reciprocity and the pervasive nature of transactional power in romance. The chapter opens with a raw expression of enduring solitude and the unique agony of possessing "love no one ever claimed," an untethered emotional resource that must be "wiped clean, kill[ed] dead" if it cannot be received. The speaker then uses the "Three Knives" structure to anatomize past relational trauma, arguing that his partners never engaged with his emotional truth, only his utility: First Knife: Obedience is offered instead of care, proving a fundamental lack of personal investment. Second Knife: The partner uses the speaker’s pain as an excuse for self-aggrandizing performance, seeking applause and pride ("distributing herself like party favours") rather than understanding. Third Knife: The partner treats the speaker’s deep wounds as a temporary, easily dismissed inconvenience. The speaker internalizes this cycle, concluding that his attempts at "free" and "easy love" are treated as "trash love" by a society that only values what is chased, purchased, or won. This shame culminates in the realization that he participates in his own humiliation, giving money for what he "believes is truly worth something," making his position "worse case than being a woman" due to his self-inflicted degradation. The critique of "equality" reinforces the speaker’s stance against performative ethics. He dismisses those who "scream equality... while grabbing everything first" using brutal animalistic metaphors (gorilla, chimpanzee, female donkey) to argue that true worth must be demonstrated by ability and reciprocal respect, not claimed by right. The conclusion of the chapter introduces the "Fourth Kind," who embodies the ideal solution. She does not demand power; she is power, possessing innate strength and self-assurance ("offers protection"). Crucially, she is defined by functional reciprocity: she speaks plainly, keeps her word, and operates without games. This figure solves the speaker's core "character flaw" ("never learned how to take"). Because the Fourth Woman is already powerful and secure, she does not need the speaker to play the dominant, endlessly giving male role. Her honesty creates a space where the speaker can safely receive respect and truth, solving his lifelong problem of closing his fists. The tragedy, however, is sealed by the speaker’s final detail: he has only known these women as "Friends." The successful blueprint for a functional, equal relationship is attainable, but only in the absence of romantic desire. The moment the primal need for a romantic "Queen" is introduced, the women revert to the transactional "three knives," leaving the speaker forever exiled from the only love capable of redeeming him.Ronie Dinosaur Chapter 16 – The Fourth Woman
Days turned to weeks,
weeks to months,
months swallowed by years-
look at what’s become of me.
Here, behenchod, there’s no one left.
Who will look?
There never was anyone.
Reality is so rotten
it makes me want to end such a self.
Where do I find a heart
that would listen once-
or at least erase
the love no one ever claimed,
wipe it clean, kill it dead.
First knife:
I screamed, “Never speak to me again.”
It was a small fight.
She obeyed.
Perfect obedience,
timed to gut me forever.
She never wanted me.
She only followed orders.
Her logic was: she did as she was told
because I wanted that.
Second knife:
She didn’t know how to give love-
only the thing between her legs.
I once told her, jokingly,
“You don’t know how to show affection.
I might just visit a nightclub.”
She thought herself so untouchably ‘hottie’
that the sentence pinched her pride.
So instead of trying to understand,
she performed her version of liberation:
distributing herself like party favours,
collecting applause like trophies.
Kept me as a spare tyre,
let me chase so she could feel like a queen
while spitting on my name.
I gave love for free.
Easy love becomes trash love.
She didn’t even pretend.
One afternoon, sunlight on her face,
she said-proving her point,
redeeming the statement I made earlier-
“Why would I call anyone like you?”
Third knife:
I told her, “Don’t talk to me,”
after she rejected me.
She vanished.
Years later she crawls back,
whining, “Why don’t you talk to me?”
As if time never passed,
as if my wounds were her inconvenience.
Out of these three,
not one came to compromise,
not one asked if I was hurt.
Cow, buffalo, goat-
every last one thought only of itself.
How thoughtful.
How lovely.
Women with hearts?
What a beautiful world.
And yet there comes a time
when a man doesn’t grasp the full shame of it-
he loves, he works for her,
and he is also the one who gives her money
so she can give him what he believes
is truly worth something.
It is a worse case than being a woman.
No one took my word seriously.
No one respected it.
In a society where only men chase,
women never learn how to love-
only how to be chased,
only how to open legs
or open mouths for applause.
The ones who scream “equality” loudest
while grabbing everything first
are never equal in ability.
Next the gorilla will demand a seat at the table
because it learned to peel a banana.
The monkey will snatch the mic
and swear it can sing.
The chimpanzee will beg for a licence
because it once rode a bike.
The donkey will bray,
“I too have a pussy-
so am I not equal to woman
the way woman now claims to be equal to man?”
But not all are livestock.
There is a fourth kind.
She never shouts “equality.”
She simply gives it-
then takes it back with the same hand.
She already knows she is equal:
in bed,
in society,
in responsibility,
in strength of heart, mind, body.
She needs no protection;
she offers it.
I have known exactly three such women.
Friends.
Real equals.
With them I have no games-
no domination, no fake maturity,
no emotional chess.
I say plainly what I want.
They say plainly what they want.
I keep their word.
They keep mine.
The one without power cannot share it.
These women have power.
That is why I value them.
I only ever learned how to give-
never how to take.
With them, even that flaw disappears.
____________________________________________________________________
Exercise for anyone who wants to answer:
Question 16: What does the Fourth Woman look for in bed from her man?
(Write your answer in the comments.)
[…] ______________________________________________________________________________ Question 16: asked here : Ronie Dinosaur Chapter 16 – The Fourth Woman […]
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