Boys with Sharp Teeth

by Jenni Howell

TO ALL THE ONES TOO MONSTROUS TO BE LOVED: IT ISN’T TRUE.

Sorry has never fixed anything. It just bares the wound; it doesn’t bind it.

My English teacher showed us the movie version of Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet and called it good. Everyone else agreed with him. They spent more time discussing the Hawaiian T-shirts than the actual story, but I fell in love with the way the words sounded. Like they were on the edges between reality and dream.

Will make me sleep again; and then, in dreaming, The clouds methought would open, and show riches Ready to drop upon me, that when I waked I cried to dream again.

know this feeling, too, the yearning to hide in dreaming, the way I hid inside my books in Amberdeen—and even here, hiding in the little library. But not all nightmares stay in dreams. Some follow you to waking.

I have high hopes, and would rejoice, if I could find at least one thing that is certain, and unquestionable. —René Descartes, “Second Meditation”

Mirrors are eyes stapled open. Ever-seeing, never blinking, there is no rest for their sight. Hours, days, years pass staring at the same stretch of wall, the same shifting shadows as dawn rises and noon bursts and night falls. They see the little ragged seams of reality, where now meets before uneasily. They see the way most mortal eyes slip right past the seams, sifting the blur into shadow—déjà vu—daydream.

In a totally sane society, madness is the only freedom. —J. G. Ballard

I am always afraid that none of this is real

I’m afraid to die after living a life that was never mine.

To love someone … is to circle around the other like a dead star and absorb him into a black light. —Jean Baudrillard

none of this was a lie. only everything else

The boy stops feasting. His neck twists farther than bones would allow, fixing that broken gaze on me. Dark hollows fill the spaces where his eyes once were. Their edges move, hundreds of slender black streaks spreading slowly outward. No, not streaks. Worms. The dying sunlight glints off their segmented backs as each one writhes, desperate to burrow its way deeper inside. But there’s too many, and some lose their grip, rot’s tears sliding down toward the corner of his lips. He smiles. My mind shudders. I was so desperate for Sam to be here, guiding me, that I never looked past the shadow. This presence is too sure, too knowing, settling into the darkest parts of my soul with all the ease of an oil slick.