The inventor of the mirror did few of us any favours: we must have been happier before we knew what we looked like. - Margaret Atwood

What is your favorite word?”
“And. It is so hopeful.

A prison does not only lock its inmates inside, it keeps all others out. Her strongest prison is of her own construction.

The temptation is to stay inside; to subside into the kind of recluse whom neighborhood children regard with derision and little awe; to let the hedges and weeds grow up, to allow the doors to rust shut, to lie on my bed in some gown-shaped garment and let my hair lengthens and spread out over the pillow and my fingernails to sprout into claws, while candle wax drips onto the carpet. But long ago I made a choice between classicism and romanticism. I prefer to be upright and contained — an urn in daylight.