Maeve Fly

Men have always been permitted in fiction and in life to simply be what they are, no matter how dark or terrifying that might be. But with a woman, we expect an answer, a reason.

I have never understood, and still do not understand the notion that a woman must first endure a victimhood of some sort—abandonment, abuse, oppression of the patriarchy—to be monstrous. Men have always been permitted in fiction and in life to simply be what they are, no matter how dark or terrifying that might be. But with a woman, we expect an answer, a reason. But why would she do it? Why, why, why?

He howls questions to me: Who are you? Why are you doing this? I didn’t do anything to anyone. I don’t deserve this. Why me? This is a failing of men. This same violence, applied to a woman, she does not ask why it is being inflicted upon her, she only struggles unsuccessfully to free herself and grieves the fact she has grieved her entire life, one that she understands fundamentally and innately. That violence simply occurs.

Here is the truth, the one that so few of us know: You do not need a moral and noble story to do what you want. You do not first need to be a victim to become a monster.

I love Halloween because all the time, everyone wears masks. But one night a year, they do it openly. The dark and forbidden things they wish to be but deny themselves, on Halloween they don’t. On Halloween, they embrace it, all of it. The hidden parts of the world are exposed, if only for one night. And those things that are truly dark are a little less alone.

I have tried the way of the misanthrope, the way of the deviant, the philosopher, the observer, the pretender. But there is one road I have not seriously considered walking down, have not permitted myself to. Perhaps it is time.

A lifetime thus far of being alone. Of knowing I would be alone, forever. To stand in a full room and know oneself to be apart, that invisible barrier between you and them to be in every way uncrossable. To find the will to exist in a world so wholly unsuited for you.

There are no spoilers in life. If you are observant and pragmatic, the endings of all things are easily predictable. In the most basic terms, human life is always punctuated with death. It does not cheapen the buildup to know it. There are many winding paths to an inevitable end, and there is so much beauty and pain in the watching.

There are many definitions of insanity in this world. One could argue that spooning a man’s eyeball out of the socket and performing carnal acts of religious desecration with it is insanity - we will revisit that later- perhaps you’d be right, but I argue that true insanity is driving in Los Angeles.

Inside my room, I turn on Billy Holiday. There are only two kinds of music in my world. Billy Holiday and Halloween songs.

The core of the story was there. People so often get hung up on the facts, on plausibility or details. But every day in this life, we’re all only telling each other, and ourselves, stories. We may as well make them good.

It’s only the kind of fucked-up girls who like my princess, the sister with the destructive powers, the one without a husband. The one who occupies the space of both princess and villainess.

The wolf is strong. But there is one who is stronger. You will have to feed it, every day, forever. You will have to nurture it, Maeve, for the wolf can never be seen again. Not by me, and not by anyone. You cannot be what you are and survive.

It was the grime and the shine together.

You do not need a moral and noble story to do what you want. You do not first need to be a victim to become a monster. Your loved ones need not be taken from you so that you might drink and brutalize and chase the sublime. Life is fleeting and meaningless and crying to be seized from behind and fucked into obscurity.

In the most basic terms, human life is always punctuated with death.

There are no spoilers in life. There is only just the one ending.

At first I was drawn to illicit, banned, or subversive books because they were just that. But after a time, and especially since my grandmother’s illness set in, I’ve been using them as sort of instructional guides. How to Exist, as told by misanthropes throughout the ages.

And because we're being honest, because we're girl besties, I guess the truth is really this. You took something I love from me, but... I really might have just done all this anyway.

If you possess both youth and beauty, you can get away with much in this world. You can get away with anything. We all know the types.

Morally disappointing people exist everywhere. It is really just the holiness that kills me. Nothing in this world is so deliciously satisfying as watching a pious person go down.

We're all just playing into stories created before our time. We're all just living and altering them, every day.

It’s nearly October, I realize. Just a week away. The Halloween spirit is reviving. Without fail, this has been and always will be the most wonderful time of the year.

Die the little death. I think you want to die the little death with me, Maeve.

I have never understood