The Deeper the Water the Uglier the Fish

by Katya Apekina

I sat down with the intention of working on a novel but everything I write turns into a letter to you. I’m under your spell, girl. Why fight it?

“Shame is useless unless it motivates you to do better. Usually it does no such thing. It only sucks up energy. Drink.”

Her mother’s suffering was so huge it was like its own person: it needed to be constantly fed and tended to. I don’t know what it would have done to me to grow up with a mother like that.

It must have been horrible for him to create me and then lose control of the narrative in this way.