My Darling Dreadful Thing

by Johanna van Veen

Some things are so horrible that the only sane response is a bit of madness.

I was never a happy child. I think that, if I had been, things would have gone very differently with me.

“You must be careful with that, Roos. It’s a dangerous thing, to try and give someone everything. One day, you might find you’ve given away things you should’ve kept.

“Forgive me. I didn’t mean to laugh. Sometimes I can’t help it. I must laugh or else go mad.”

Might be worth watching her for more signs of homosexuality; after all, it’s a known disorder of the mind.

D: “You don’t believe in God?” P: “He hasn’t yet given me much reason to believe in him.”

“Some things must be experienced to be understood.”

Maybe the dead weren’t meant to watch over the living but the living over the dead.

“Thank God for small blessings.” “Not God: nature and its tendency to decay.”

Won’t you let me worship you as you deserve to be worshipped?”

What use was it, this chewing over all the ways things could go wrong? Being caught in my own head was exhausting.

“But you must laugh or else go mad,”

Some things are so shameful, so painful, that we lock them away deep inside us and pretend they don’t exist.

“The only place I need is beside my beloved.”

“How else does one show the strength and sincerity of one’s love if not through suffering and sacrifice?”