Mona Awad

smiling beatifically in his own antidepressant- fueled fever dream

Sometimes you have to kill your darlings, you know? In fact, that’s what we sometimes call them. Darlings.

Because you simply can’t sit back and allow your best friend to date an animal- man of your own creation and say nothing

I die inside when he says this. Recall the words, which I wrote down in another, older notebook. Scrawled it ecstatically on the lonely campus green when I was hungover after one of our first day- and nightlong escapades

We’re all waving at one another from across the great shores of the tented green.

Except Ava

That they would get tangled in each other’s Game of Thrones hair, choked by the ornate braids they were forever braiding into each other’s heart- shaped little heads. That they would choke on each other’s blandly grassy perfume.

Skins aglow with affection and belonging as though they’d just been hydrated by the purest of mountain streams.

heavy centerpieces. Behold the Christmas- lit white gauze floating everywhere like so many ghosts. Behold the pewter trays of salmon pinwheels, duck- liver crostini topped with little

so many ghosts. Behold the pewter trays of salmon pinwheels, duck- liver crostini topped with little sugared orchids. Behold the white people in black discussing grants they earned to translate poets no one reads from the French. Behold the lavish tent under which the overeducated mingle, well versed in every art but the one of conversation. Smilingly oblivious to the fact that they are in the mouth of hell. Or as Ava and I call it, the Lair of Cthulhu. Cthulhu is a giant squid monster invented by a horror writer who went insane and died here. And you know what

conversation. Smilingly oblivious to the fact that they are in the mouth of hell. Or as Ava and I call it, the Lair of Cthulhu. Cthulhu is a giant squid monster invented by a horror writer who went insane and died here. And you know what, it makes sense. Because you can feel it when you’re walking