“That night, I wash myself. The silky suds between my legs are the color and scent of rust, but I am newer than I have ever been.” — Carmen Maria Machado Copy Share Image
“(If you read this story out loud, please use the following voices: ME: as a child, high-pitched, forgettable; as a woman, the same. THE BOY WHO WILL GROW INTO A MAN, AND BE MY SPOUSE: robust with serendipity. MY FATHER:… — Carmen Maria Machado Copy Share Image
“She was a stranger because something essential was shielded, released in tiny bursts until it became a flood---a flood of what I realized I… — Carmen Maria Machado Copy Share Image
“Beyond the table, there is an altar, with candles lit for Billie Holiday and Willa Carter and Hypatia and Patsy Cline. Next to it, an old podium that once held a Bible, on which we have repurposed an old chemistry handbook as the Book of Lilith. In its pages is our own liturgical calendar: Saint Clementine and All Wayfarers; Saints… — Carmen Maria Machado Copy Share
“Many people live and die without ever confronting themselves in the darkness.” — Carmen Maria Machado Copy Share Image
“What I say: “Why did you leave her with me?” What I want to say: “This almost broke me, but it didn’t. It made… — Carmen Maria Machado Copy Share Image
“And there was nothing in my eyes. Or even worse -- nothingness. Not the presence of a thing but the presence of a non-thing.” — Carmen Maria Machado Copy Share Image
“You never live with a woman, you live inside of her, I overheard my father say to my brother once, and it was, indeed,… — Carmen Maria Machado Copy Share Image
“I once heard a story about a girl who requested something so vile from her paramour that he told her family and they had… — Carmen Maria Machado Copy Share Image
“That night, I wash myself. The silky suds between my legs are the color and scent of rust, but I am newer than I… — Carmen Maria Machado Copy Share Image
“A feeling settles over me—a one-beer-deep feeling, a no-more-skittering-feet-after-the-trap-snaps feeling.” — Carmen Maria Machado Copy Share Image
“Will I ever be done, transformed in the past tense, or will I always be transforming, better and better until I die?” — Carmen Maria Machado Copy Share Image
“She’s like dough, how the give of it beneath kneading hands disguises its sturdiness, its potential.” — Carmen Maria Machado Copy Share Image
“Mara, remember how you kicked sand into that neighbor child’s eyes? I yelled at you and made you apologize in your best dress, and… — Carmen Maria Machado Copy Share Image
