No One Can Know

by Kate Alice Marshall

Worry when it looks perfect, because that means you’ve caught up with your own ambition and judgment. Dissatisfaction is the engine of creativity.

She gritted her teeth. Talk about a thing too much, you’re obsessed. Talk about it too little, you’re hiding something. And no such thing as a middle ground. She could never get it right. That perfect balancing act of the right way to speak, to be, to look, to feel, so your innocence could be confirmed. Once you were tainted you could never get clean.

You lose a dream and it starts to hurt to even remember you ever had it.”

When had she decided that it was better to be miserable than to be alone, she wondered. Or had that always been the price she was paying?

What did she want? The same things she always had, she thought. Her sisters. A home she wasn’t afraid of. A life spent without looking over her shoulder.