The Path of Thorns

Life. A woman's life is the path of thorns," I say. "We walk through it, our feet will always hurt." "I knew you were smart." She presses her lips together, calls me by my name for the first time. "Asher? My feet hurt." I say, "Yes." And we both begin to cry.

Secrets do not stay in the dark where we put them. Some lie dormant, but others slither beneath doors, over windowsills, through the cracks in walls, out into the light where everyone can see them, poke at them, know them.

And I realise that most people will remain somewhere as long as they can no matter that it’s no good for them. Home might be a pile of shit, but they’ll stay because it’s warm and the smell is familiar and they’ll cling to that.

I can’t take a fucking step but I land on a thorn.

They say she did not die,’ I breathe, a little carried away to speak of such things with someone who understands them. ‘They say she wrote herself into a book, with ink of her blood, and pages of her skin, a quill of her bones, all threaded together with her own hair.

This is the story you asked to taste, whether it be sour or sweet, it is done.

Just as I came to break this house, so too I'm breaking. The fault lines that run through me are growing wider and wider. I must leave before I'm entirely sundered.

I made myself beneath their notice, I learned to move oh-so-quietly along the corridors, to slip in and out of places I was not meant to be. To enchant the soles of my shoes so I could pass unremarked.

I shake myself, feel the past cascade from my shoulders.