Waif

by Samantha Kolesnik

I call it “The Time Before Men,” a version of myself I can never get back. I guess, you could say, some might also call it Innocence.

far more acceptable to seem virtuous than to be it.

My tears were always a problem. My emotions were an even bigger problem. Ever since I had been little, the shocks and waves of others’ cruelty had rocked me apparently just a bit too much. I’m not sure how men thought women were supposed to react to pain because our tears seemed to send them into panic or rage. We would have been better as sponges . . . absorbent and full of holes.

I wanted him, wholly and irreversibly. I wanted to become intertwined with him in a makeshift, cobbled-together AngieBen human quilt. One patch of his skin next to one patch of mine, one sliver of my tongue overlapping a stitch of his. If ever there were a desire to die, it would be together, him and I.

I know it’s not rational. Does grief have to be?