3,400 square feet, marble counters, Brazilian walnut hardwood floors, and the strangest stipulation I’ve ever seen on a real-estate listing.
Psychological
Because let’s face it – the disturbed mind of a human can be more terrifying than any monster.
I was raised by the man who kidnapped me
The people I live with aren’t my parents. They aren’t even related to my parents, as far as I can tell. They’re just people—cold, ruthless, angry people who wanted to have a daughter of their own and didn’t care whose lives they destroyed to get one.
The wounds that words have caused
I’ve made the horrible mistake of falling in love with someone who doesn’t exist, and it hurts like you wouldn’t believe.
I’m afraid of a life without monsters
“Stay up as late as you want, I don’t mind,” my mother used to say. “I don’t think Raleigha will like it though.”
I had to choose which child to save
The sanctity of my home was destroyed two years ago when a man smashed our kitchen window in the dead of night. I woke immediately, clutching sheets to my chest, pretending for as long as I could that the sounds of tinkling glass were fragments of a discarded dream.
Redefining Love
I didn’t believe that stars were real when I was a little girl growing up in New York. My parents told me they were drowned out by the city lights, but that didn’t seem possible. It just didn’t make sense how something that big could be completely invisible. What was the big deal anyway, if they were duller than ordinary light-bulbs?
An Open Letter to my Daughter’s Killer
An open letter to the killer of Samantha B. If you’re somehow able to read this wherever you are now, know that I will find you.
A painting by day, a window by night.
A big black dog rearing on its hind-legs to stand like a human. One paw was conspiratorially placed in front of its lips as though swearing the viewer to uphold a shared secret. I hadn’t given the painting a second thought, except maybe to remind myself not to bump into it while stumbling down the hall at night to use the bathroom.
We can fix your child
As you inevitably age your skin will wither and mush like putrid fruit. Your organs will decay into useless sludge. Even your mind will rob you of a lifetime of memories and experience, reducing you to nothing but an organic shell of who you used to be. You’ve begun to feel it already. Imperceptible by the day, but implacable as the marching years, your body is growing soft and weak. You will never again be as young as you are in this moment, and even now you can smell all those lofty dreams of youth rotting into idle fantasies that will never be realized.