Nestlings

by Nat Cassidy

They had the scars (Ana put the knife down) (What were you doing?!) to prove they had made it through the worst years of their lives. But only survivors have scars in the first place.

What do you do when you’ve lost faith in everything? Even your own body?

A garden of resentment was sown that day. Its hideous plants bloomed at irregular, unpredictable intervals. A sprig of hate. A blossom of blame. Entire teeming hedgerows of depression and alienation.

But mothers can handle a lot of sensations at once, can’t they? It’s part of the job: to be torn open and persevere.

How much pain is caused by hiding pain from others? Wait, why the hell am I thinking I’m about to be in pain?! Then, suddenly, the staircase stopped. No more steps.

Adulthood was all about compromises, wasn’t it? You decide what you need, what you want, and shift your priorities around until you find the least bad combination. Each compromise was a link in a chain, and if that chain dragged you down to the bottom of the East River? Well … at least you had Netflix and Spotify to distract you while you sank.

“Be careful you don’t get taken advantage of. One problem with absurdists is they don’t always know when something stops being funny and starts being corrosive.”