In the Dream House

by Carmen Maria Machado

If, one day, a milky portal had opened up in your bedroom and an older version of yourself had stepped out and told you what you know now, would you have listened? You like to think so, but you’d probably be lying;

You were all mind; anxiety was your lifeblood, your fuel. You were young. You didn’t know your mind could be a boon and a prison both; that someone could take its power and turn it against you.