The Honey Witch

by Sydney J. Shields

But what happens when the girl keeps living, when she ages proudly and defiantly, without abandoning imagination, or stories, or that secret wish to find magic wherever it hides? Well, then the poets would call her a witch. It is better to be lost in a beautiful daydream than trapped in a dim reality.

“What any woman wants for herself is not for you to decide. You would do well to remember that.”

It is a mistake to think of grief as an absence. It’s more of a dark, shadowy thing that sits in constant periphery, always there, always stealing air and making it hard to breathe.