Emily Austin

Losing someone to the Lord makes it sound like God steals people.

I start to picture a world where Jesus had been killed using a different murder device. I picture little ceramic guillotine figurines. I imagine miniature nooses hung above children’s beds. Electric chair necklaces and earrings.

Sometimes I feel like I was a different person a month ago. A day. Five minutes. Now

Other times I fixate on how endearing people are. We sleep on soft surfaces; we like to be cozy. When I see cats cuddled up on pillows, I find it sweet; we are like that too. We like to eat cookies and smell flowers. We wear mittens and hats. We visit our families even when we’re old. We like to pet dogs. We laugh; we make involuntary sounds when we find things funny. Laughing is adorable, if you really think about it.

If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination. They must be put to death.

Yikes. Thank God this one doesn’t seem to apply to women either. I’m disappointed God is so homophobic that he forgot about lesbians, but I guess I would rather be forgotten than put to death.

y mother had a baby, and her mother had a baby, and her mother had a baby. Every woman in my family before me lived to have a baby—just so that baby could grow up to have another baby. If I don’t have a baby, then all of those women reproduced just so that I could exist. I am the final product. I am the final baby.

How could anyone think I could kill someone? I can’t even kill myself.

I can’t muster the energy required to be a positive part of anyone’s life. I can’t even muster the energy to apologize for that.

My death, and the death of everyone I love, is inevitable.

I am neither; I am a twenty-seven-year-old woman who couldn’t possibly be pregnant.