Hungerstone

by Kat Dunn

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

I am a piece of artwork he is unsure he likes, having brought it home.

there is only safety and certainty in death.

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

“Who taught you not to dream?”

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

“It is too easy to disguise cruelty as frankness.”

There is something empty in me. I can feed and feed and feed it, but somehow, I am never satiated.

“You think you must be good company for someone to come to your side?”

I am not the beginning of it.” A cloud passes over her face, her features for a moment stormy and jagged. “I am the end.”

death, at least, offered certainty; to be vulnerable meant being at the mercy of others,

it was easier to be unconscious than to be alive.

How frightening it would be to die, but how great a relief to sleep forever.

I am aware I am surrounded by so many happier people: those in love, with family, those who belong and know what it is they want in life.

I am a moth battering myself against the light, so easily burned in my desperation.

It did not matter that it was me specifically; it was only that I was there,

To be so wholly in another’s hands is unbearable.

Play your own game.”

You do not have to put yourself down to compliment me, I meant to say but I did not know how.

I wanted to be near her light, even though she cast me in shadow.