Eventually, he did nod yes to marrying me. Replacing a few more strings shouldn’t cost too much.

It wasn’t the corn gone missing drove me mad, but the whining of our newborn. My wife cries now sure, but there ain’t no more crows in the field.

I’ve been so hungry since Mommy left. Her funeral was closed casket—there just wasn’t enough of her to say goodbye to.

It started shortly after my brother died. My dog, normally energetic and oblivious, began to stare at me for hours on end—silent and unblinking, his eyes wide with something I couldn’t place. At first, I thought it was grief; we had both lost him, after all. But as the weeks dragged on, the staring continued, every night, always from the same spot at the foot of my bed. I tried everything to snap him out of it—calling his name, offering him treats—but nothing broke him. Months passed, and the staring grew unbearable. “What’s wrong with you!” I screamed one night, my frustration taking hold as those familiar eyes bore into mine. That’s when it hit me—he wasn’t staring at me; his eyes were fixed just past my shoulder.

My husband won’t stop with the bruises. They never seem to fade, each one darker than the last. Every evening I go to him and I plead to him, I beg for him to stop. But when I leave his grave and go to sleep… I wake up in the morning and my bruises are even darker. As if somehow by putting him there, I’ve made it worse than before.