Tell The Wolves I'm Home

by Carol Rifka Brunt

I felt like I had proof that not all days are the same length, not all time has the same weight. Proof that there are worlds and worlds and worlds on top of worlds, if you want them to be there.

“No, no. It’s the most unhappy people who want to stay alive, because they think they haven’t done everything they want to do. They think they haven’t had enough time. They feel like they’ve been shortchanged.”

When I thought of all that, it hit me right in the throat. Nothing had changed. I was the stupid one again. I was the girl who never understood who she was to people.

and I thought how many small good things in the world might be resting on the shoulders of something terrible.

I really wondered why people were always doing what they didn’t like doing. It seemed like life was a sort of narrowing tunnel. Right when you were born, the tunnel was huge. You could be anything. Then, like, the absolute second after you were born, the tunnel narrowed down to about half that size.

I figured that on the day you died, the tunnel would be so narrow, you’d have squeezed yourself in with so many choices, that you just got squashed.

There are dark black buttons tattooed on my heart. I’ll carry them for the rest of my days.