Mary: An Awakening of Terror

by Nat Cassidy

It stretches out, infinite and implacable, strange and yet more familiar than my own name. Its beauty is unquestionable—but I would never call it beautiful. There’s a drabness, a scrubbiness

Abuse is its own kind of reincarnation, isn’t it? We become the ones who made us.

He’s frustrated I know this. My preempting of his answer has upset him. As if I can’t know things. As if I’m not a thousand times older than he is and worthy of knowledge. I am worthy of knowledge, you little yelping dog, and you’re keeping me from the knowledge I’ve been searching for.

Boys usually get to keep that confidence, I think; girls have to give it back like it never really belonged to them.

Because the past is like the moon, isn’t it? It’s always there, but it shifts, it’s never the same when you revisit it.

I could have been a Stalin But I was born with Nadia’s body If you knew how much anger I had in me you’d say Thank God she’s not a man She might destroy millions Thank God the only person she has the power to destroy Is herself

We invest so much in certain objects, don’t we? More vessels, dipped into the waters of life, holding identity inside. Which I guess just goes to show how little of what we think of as identity is really real.

They will always try to condense our complexities into something simple and dismissible, because that’s what being a woman is, being too much for definitions and being defined anyway, out of fear, and my God, will we be fearless!