Acts of Desperation

by Megan Nolan

Who will rescue me from this body that is taking me to death?

It was the feeling that each human life has a narrative and a destiny. It was the feeling that misfortune, no matter how great, would eventually serve to lead each of us to our own particular and inevitable conclusion.

every action would lead me to where I ought to be ultimately, and where I ought to be was in love.

I pleaded with him to see how small I really was.

I panicked when my need shone through because it was real. The need was a true and human part of me, but I could feel nothing else of myself to be true or human, and so the need seemed ungodly, an aberration.

How impoverished my internal life had become, the scrabbling for a token of love from somebody who didn’t want to offer it.

I wanted, I suppose, for him to need me, without knowing that it was me that he needed at all.

It’s easy to disappear beneath the incessant cycle of chores necessary to keep a pleasant and clean home.

– we would pass a pretty girl, I would notice her first, and my eyes would dart to his to see him clock her.

my primary desire was to please and be loved by him.

the way to hurt me is to ignore me.

He did not love me – couldn’t, for what Me was there to love? What Me had he ever known? – but he had become attached to me, dependent on me.

I give so much pleasure to so many people. Why can’t I get some pleasure for myself?

a man wheedling feels unbearable.

Wheedling is cowardly, and violent. When you change someone’s no to yes by wheedling, you have stolen from them what does not belong to you.