A Certain Hunger

by Chelsea G. Summers

It’s one small mercy that here in prison we don’t have to see anyone we don’t choose to see. In this way, prison is beautifully unlike real life. In real life, people from your past litter your life like cockroaches, popping out of crevices and scuttling across the dark.

friends, for me, are usually people I like well enough to act as if our relationship isn’t wholly transactional.

I was afraid she was going to cry. I hate crying. So pointless, and so damp.

an unappetizing excuse for protein with the texture of boiled pencil eraser and the flavor of brown paper towels wetted with weak tea—is one of them.

Do a little research and you’ll find there’s a surprising amount of available information on the cooking and eating of people, so much, in fact, that one could begin to believe it’s entirely normal.

My former assistant, it turned out, did not believe in undergarments, despite their verifiable existence.

In sum, you and I are the same. You may not admit it aloud, but I know you will read this book and wonder how your lover would taste sautéed with shallots and mushrooms and

You never see as many innocent people as you do in prison.

he lived or died. It was his body, his choice.