So Thirsty

by Rachel Harrison

But this is a form of unconditional love. Of release. We gift each other the freedom to gnash our teeth, to growl and gnaw. Behave badly. Be terrible. Because we’ll love each other through it and no one else will.

In those fourteen years, I’ve caught him cheating three times.

I was so preoccupied lamenting my invisibility as a woman getting older, I didn’t realize it could be weaponized. I didn’t realize it’s part of our power, no one thinking we have any.

Living is complicated and messy. To live is to fuck up and make mistakes—”

I’d wanted to use you, I wouldn’t have let your first taste of blood be your own. You would have been forever bound to me, the one who turned you. Now you are bound to no one but yourself. And whoever you may choose.”

Maybe loneliness makes monsters of us all.

“If only you could stare at your reflection. Be face-to-face with the one who holds your joy hostage. Perhaps then you could forgive her. Perhaps then you could hope to fall in love with your future.”

I understand in this moment that there is no right thing to do, no good way to exist as what we are, or even as what we were—mortal women. My worldview, my rules, my morality, were all constructed as a cage for my shame—shame forged by forces outside myself. I’ve related restriction to virtue, nourishment to gluttony; associated satisfaction with guilt ever since I learned about the Atkins diet, ever since I heard the word “slut,” ever since I was young.

Maybe the world makes you callous. The longer you live, the less you care. I wonder if that’s a good thing, or if it’s tragic. I wonder if it’s possible to ever know for sure.