Hungerstone

by Kat Dunn

I furl myself in the quilt like an oyster in its shell with no pearl to show for the grit that works through it. Pain and blood, grief and hunger. To be a woman is a horror I can little comprehend.

The blood that came each month after. At first, a disappointment, then a fear, then a grief, then an inevitability. I was good for nothing but blood.

I remember every physical sensation, but the emotion must be so great it lies beyond memory, beyond feeling.

“Enough. You’ve been reading too much common literature.”

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.

“If you take a wife who needs nothing from you, then you will live forever in her debt.”

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

“Oh, little Lenore. It is terrible to be alive. But it is worse to be dead to ourselves.”