Acts of Desperation

by Megan Nolan

By pity, what I mean is that just by looking at him I felt an acute tenderness for his condition: his being human. In that moment the basic affection and sorrow I feel for any human person was intensified to such a degree I could not breathe.

What would you choose? Either you can be famous for being a shrill prop in a great man’s work, a victim sacrificed to the gods of art, or you can nod along and applaud. You can have a seat at the big boys’ table for being such a good sport. So, go ahead: ha ha ha.

Is this why I am so ashamed of talking about certain events, or of finding them interesting? This is part of the horror of being hurt generically. Your experiences are so common that they become impossible to speak about in an interesting way.

I hadn’t known until that moment how delicately I had been keeping everything inside me together those last few months. My body felt as though it had been holding its breath for a very long time and had just realised it couldn’t do so for ever.

If he got something out of me, I was taking something from him, too. I was taking away his ability to live without me easily. I subbed his rent, I cooked his food, I cleaned his clothes, so that one day soon there would come a time when he could no longer remember how he had ever done without me, and could not imagine doing so ever again.

Even then, when we were thirteen, she was much kinder than me. There were reasons for that – a person so beautiful has no reason to be cruel.

It’s a peculiar anger, resenting doing something that nobody asked you to do.

A punishment for ignoring my family; a punishment for needing only someone who could not see me, instead of needing the people who could.