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I wonder sometimes how you are doing,
If he has stopped asking for cuts
from your first-born heart, if he’s stopped
demanding gold from your cunt, if he’s
since stopped insisting that his cock
is art, a shortcut to the old gods of being
happy enough.

Don’t worry.
You can keep him.

You couldn’t pay me enough wishes
to want him again, you can keep him
and his name for all the good that will do,
the syllables of it like shame and stretch marks
laid out like flesh in the gaze of a crowd that
has only worshipped in the true church of TV:
impotent, impatient, incapable
of respecting
Anything.

keep him,
seriously.

I just wonder sometimes if you remember
what it is like to be
happy.



Cassandra Khaw is a scriptwriter for Ubisoft Montreal. Her work can be found in places like F&SF, Lightspeed, and Tor.com. Her newest book—The Last Supper Before Ragnarokwas released on June 11.
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13 Jul 2026

The guillotine was conceived as swifter, painless, more humane. You touch your throat. You wonder.
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