When We Lost Our Heads

by Heather O'Neill

Every declaration of love is a magic incantation. It casts a spell on your future. They knelt in front of each other in the middle of the labyrinth. Marie had a wreath of white flowers on her head. Sadie had a wreath of red ones on hers. “I declare my love for you for the rest of my life. Nothing will ever tear us apart. I will never love anyone as much as I love you.” “My heart is hereby bequeathed to you. I will give you my heart.” “We will exchange hearts. Your heart will be beating in my chest. And my heart will be beating in yours.” “I am as much you as I am myself. When you are away from me, I will never feel whole. There will be an empty space in my chest. And I will be heartless.”

Her shame was absorbed in every part of her body. She felt it in her toes. The female body was particularly absorbent when it came to shame. If you wrung out any woman’s body, you would discover it was soaked in shame.

There was a pervasive idea that girls were all on the brink of madness. It took much less than anyone had previously believed to push a girl over the edge. A single novel could do it. A complicated idea could do it. Having ambition and wanting to have an occupation could definitely do it. It was too taxing on the female brain. They had to be monitored carefully to make sure they stuck to exclusively feminine subjects.