Hungerstone

by Kat Dunn

To be a woman is a horror I can little comprehend.

I was good for nothing but blood.

I remember only the sense that the whole world passed before me, and yet I belonged nowhere in it.

“Lenore. You do not visit.”

needy needy

Who we are is more than a series of dates and legalities. You are kind yet cautious.

I thought marriage freedom when I sought it; I thought it safety. But sometimes, when my control slips, I think there is only safety and certainty in death.

Let this life of mine be about more than pain.

Carmilla holds an allure, like ghosting a finger around the edge of a flame: the temptation, the beauty, and the anticipation of pain.

she looks upon me so warmly it is as though I am now the fire, for so greatly do I burn with something I cannot name.

I have chosen Carmilla, and I will have her.

I cannot control this, my body and I are unwilling prisoners together, and it makes its protest louder than my thoughts can contain.

Her smile is delicious and wicked and just for me.

Hungerstone Edge.

omg title mention

“It is naive to think one is owed anything from life. We endure it; we survive it. That is enough.”

I could not stomach a mouthful. The world had cracked open, and nothing held any meaning. To eat, to not eat, to speak or not speak—it was all the same.

I was too much, too loud, too emotional, too clumsy, too self-involved. My existence was a burden to all involved with it, and I resolved to never make any demand if I could help it. Then, perhaps, I could be tolerated. Then, perhaps, I could be loved.

“You cannot marry one of those pretty girls. You need someone who understands that the world is not a neat, simple thing. It is harsh and unkind. I know that truth.”

“Because it is bad. Are we not all taught that as children? If I have made someone angry, then I have done something wrong. We should endeavor to bring happiness into the lives of those around us.”

“Disappointment tells us what we truly wanted. And to want is to be alive.” I’ve lost.

My yearning, hopeful heart wants this to be real, to be true.

shes just like me

My body gives me no quarter and I long, not for the first time, to step outside it, to shed my skin and float, formless and unfeeling through the world.

the trans experience tbh

No, there is always something I have done wrong, some fatal flaw in me that makes it all mean nothing.

I had learned upon the death of my parents that to be exposed as vulnerable, as not-knowing, was the greatest danger possible; death, at least, offered certainty; to be vulnerable meant being at the mercy of others, one’s whole selfhood at risk.

I want her. It is simple, and it is impossibly complex.

Because to want is to risk disappointment. And life has so bitterly disappointed me.

I am a woman woken from thirty years slumber, and I would eat the world should it satisfy this empty, keening void where my heart should be.

They have not done a good job. Or maybe they did the best job possible, and it still wasn’t enough.

How stupid all of this is. All this formality and display—for what? Control. Mastery. Some sop of comfort, the idea that in this cold, loveless world we can overcome reality and impose our will upon it.

We can only survive if we close our eyes; reality is not a thing to be experienced raw.

I have made so many mistakes. I grieve so deeply for myself.