Sam

“We sat in stalemate, her eyes pleading, and my mouth an unforgiving line.

Why should I offer her any scrap of generosity, when she swallowed my life as she did? What did I owe her in any of this?

I was struck, suddenly, by the fact that, without me, there would be no one to hear her stories—no one else at whom she could direct her spirit.

It did not matter that it was me specifically; it was only that I was there, and I had nowhere else to go. I was a vessel, a figurehead, a carved saint to whom she could offer up her confessions.

Aunt Daphne’s lips quivered, turning down at the corners. I knew the words that came next before she said them.

‘I’m not always the villain, you know.’ Her voice was tremulous.

I bit back the words I didn’t dare say: if this was her defense each time, then she would never allow herself to be the one at fault. Her demands were allowed, mine unacceptable.

‘I don’t think you a villain,’ I replied, but it was too late.

She rose from her chair in huff and bluster.

‘You have no manners, Lenore. You have no softness. Your sharp tongue can cut.’

What of her sharpness? Was it too much for me to want to think in peace about my own thorny future?

As always, she left for bed, though it was still daylight outside. I was alone. Again. As always.

The sting of it was sudden and unexpected. I had thought I wanted the irritation of her gone, but it felt no better.

I had won a hollow victory.

Perhaps she was right.

I was a cold, calloused thing, unmeant for love.”
― Kat Dunn, Hungerstone

“Rather than pass in public as human, she opts to simply disappear.”
― Spencer Williams, It Came from the Closet: Queer Reflections on Horror

“The problem was the liars. They said she could do anything she set her mind to, they told her she should shoot for the moon because if she missed she’d be among the stars, they made movies tricking her into thinking she could achieve heroic things. All lies. Because she was born to answer phones in call centers, to carry bags to customers’ cars, to punch a clock, to measure her life in smoke breaks. To think otherwise was insane.”
― Grady Hendrix, Horrorstör

“That was the crux of my oppressive experience with men in the flesh—the ones you wished would touch you never did, and the ones you never wanted to touch you did so without asking”
― Samantha Kolesnik, Waif