Where I End

by Sophie White

Dada is the most alive of us I think. He hogs all the feelings in this withered house. He is swollen with guilt and pressed down with disappointment. He leaks tears like bilge water. It’s a relief when he goes.

(Hope, I’ve come to learn, can be a noose. When we hope, we willingly, blithely, put our heads in a sadistic coil and wait to be hanged. I hoped for things when I was younger—pathetic things—and was always left swinging.)

If she were not so empty, I would be full. I would be boiled pink with love like Rachel’s baby. Instead I am an echo.