Where I End

by Sophie White

(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.)

Apparitions are scary but the real horror is to be found in people.

That’s what a baby is, I’ve come to see now. It is the mother’s whole soul extracted,