Fates and Furies

by Lauren Groff

The fireworks blister-popping in the sky, the party sounds. [Doomed people celebrate peace with sky bombs.]

It comes over us that we shall never again hear the laughter of our friend, that this garden is forever locked against us. And at that moment begins our true grief.

Conquers all! All you need is! Is a many-splendored thing! Surrender to! Like corn rammed down goose necks, this shit they’d swallowed since they were barely old enough to dress themselves in tulle.

Somehow, despite her politics and smarts, she had become a wife, and wives, as we all know, are invisible. The midnight elves of marriage.

[Grief is pain internalized, abscess of the soul. Anger is pain as energy, sudden explosion.]

[He knew her; the things he didn’t know about her would sink an ocean liner; he knew her.]