Throes
an excerpt

When my mother and father shut me shot up straight up in the Bedlam phantom fairground, I was not surprised. Mama cried weakly and Papa looked at me in sparrowslant ways, like, I’m sorry, please don’t blame me for what I do.

And how could I blame my mother and father? I am no Ophelia tumbling into a burrow in her head, fringed fine glassy sleek...oh, I am not. I am just me, Cecily-See, Cecily sees too much. I suppose I chose to be here, who knows?

I know. I know like...damn.

My name is Cecily Elizabth Liddell, like the little dark-headed girl in the pictures you pretended not to see, the infant princess lost in the tumult, the real and true princess virgin-I-hear queen whose bones lie like sated dogs in her tomb. Womb, unused. What use. What sad business is a woman unused.

I am insane, I suppose. I hum constantly and my thoughts build cities within seconds. I wear a crown of Abbeys. I parse the world out, though I don't like it. I am four girls in one--Delilah Rose, Chae Lin, Therese Delamer and Mary. Everything spreads between my fingers like sand.

I am Cecily Liddell bell bing bong boon. I cannot stop myself from speaking and thinking. I am all hustle and fire and big dark eyes. My nose is rather wide and my face is reminiscent of a child’s. I have not bled in that seedy, feminine way for three years. I think I am broken, but perhaps purified.

My name is Cecily Liddell and I am seeking the truth in God, in mud, in birds and in my whirling, festered-then-lacquered-then-burst self. Petals scatter themselves at my touch. I move like a bloated bee, trailing pollen that inflames those who investigate. I am always tired.

My name is Cecily and I don't know.