My Dark Vanessa

by Kate Elizabeth Russell

Really, I just hate it when he gets angry at me, because that’s when I feel things that probably shouldn’t be there in the first place, shame and fear, a voice urging me to run.

It’s my birthday in two days. I’ll be twenty-two. Seven years of my life defined by this. When I look back, I won’t see anything else.

I have so much capacity for good.