Jul 29, 2021
No One Is Waiting to Steal Your Joy
Growing up with abuse, I came to see the experience of joy as inseparable from the threat that it would all soon be undone.
Dorothy Bendel's writing has appeared in The Threepenny Review, The Believer, Literary Hub, Catapult, The New York Times, and additional publications. Find her at dorothybendel.com or @DorothyBendel.
Growing up with abuse, I came to see the experience of joy as inseparable from the threat that it would all soon be undone.
I try to talk openly about everything that was shrouded in mystery when I was growing up. I try to take the distorted sense of my younger self and change her shape.
My grandmother once told me that bringing bread into a home means that its residents will never go hungry.
Some think good luck or bad luck is with us from birth—though our luck might change if a winged creature steals a strand of our hair.
If a pair, walking together, is forced to pass on opposite sides of some obstacle, they should say “bread and butter” or risk a permanent separation.
Your stomach hurts because all you’ve eaten this week is frozen yogurt—but it is a hurt you can bear more than hunger.
“If contact occurs, rinse thoroughly with water so hot it sheds all the layers of who you once were and reveals someone new.”
