Heart the Lover

by Lily King

I have that feeling I often have when I’m away from my family, like they are moving farther and farther away from me, beginning to flicker faintly as distant stars and I will never ever reach them again. It feels like a premonition of the fact that someday, one by one, we will be separated from each other forever.

Pain turns women into birds, I think. I don’t want to turn into a bird in a hospital hallway.