MONSTER: Astor Snow

ASTOR SNOW:

I can’t cry.

Things happen around me that could suffocate an entire world. Sometimes I’m moving forward, moving my lips and blinking my eyes and reacting like a normal person would, and inside me there’s nothing but uncried tears. It fills me until I feel them spilling from my mouth and nose and ears, all vicious emotion, but there’s nothing there.

I can’t cry, and sometimes I wonder if I’m hollow.

My husband speaks to me and his words seem to blur before they hit my ears. His cocky smile should do something to me. It should make me wither or gasp or even just blush a little. But it all feels like requests for responses I’m not equipped to display. It all feels like heavy requests and I just stare, unable to deliver.

Inside me is an ocean of violent screams, of an agony I can’t release. Sometimes I just want someone to finally see me, to finally understand me, and rip me to shreds. Tear me into literal pieces. Release me from being filled, being drowned, being weighted. I just want to be ripped to shreds.

I can’t cry.

But I can scream.