Deathless

by Catherynne M. Valente

like old sorrows sitting heavy on the tongue.

It didn’t matter. She was a person,

Girls must be very, very careful to care only for ribbons and magazines and wedding rings. They must sweep their hearts clean of anything but kisses and theater and dancing. They must never read Pushkin; they must never say clever things; they must never have sly eyes or wear their hair loose and wander around barefoot, or they will draw his attention!

Instead, he seemed to land heavily within her, like a black stone falling.

Men, they feel nothing like what we must endure. You have to make room in yourself for him, and that is the same in a house as in a body. See that you keep some rooms for yourself, locked up tight.

Punishment doesn’t mean you aren’t loved. On the contrary. You can really only punish someone you love.”

You look like a winter night, he had told her when he had given it to her. I could sleep inside the cold of you.

And the heart of Ivan Nikolayevich broke inside the body of Marya Morevna, and the pieces of him lodged deep in her bones, and through the window, the stars watched.

grief is louder than praying.

I know you loved both he and I, the way a mother can love two sons. And no one should be judged for loving more than they ought, only for loving not enough,