It’s funny, the way we forget things.

I was ten, and sick in the Tower of London. I was 13, and sick all over Melbourne. I was missing riding lessons and missing friendships and in a permanent daze. I was always either sick or recovering in the dark.

I am still addicted to recovering in the dark. I suppose I am a hunger artist in my own way..see how long she can live without a real family.

My family would no doubt object to this. Still who knows better than me the cost they demanded I pay for their affection? And the coin in which it was paid?

Hunger artist who gets sick and needs to go home, needs space, cannot navigate the complexities of understanding what I am supposed to say. Hunger artist who has learned that her true stories about her own life are inappropriate, unwanted.

Maybe I knew instinctively not to date for fear of telling the secret of my too sick body or my too sad stories. People usually prefer their fantasies.

I am no one’s fantasy. That is, no one would daydream up a girl like me. Sooner or later, I step out of the bounds of a script I never got and then they hate me.

Best if they cast someone else, I figure. Somebody who looks the part. Allow me to continue my monster role as the place where love stops.

This is how you make a monster, by the way. You tell her she is one. You hurt her and you blame her for the hurt.

When she leaves, you tell her it’s because she never deserved you at all. She will agree, of course. Of course she will.