Black Sheep

by Rachel Harrison

Some people need conspiracies, finding the simple horror of the truth too brutal.

I wondered if my whole life would be this way, comparing bad to worse. I wondered if I’d ever be anything but resentful of perspective.

It’s a cruelty of life that we can never protect our own innocence. We can only watch ourselves lose it in retrospect. Scream at memories.

I was bad, born bad, and therefore responsible for all that was bad.