Lady: Macbeth

But I? I am awake. I am always awake now.

“What do you mean?” I said. “A little water clears us of this deed.” Lady Macbeth

For a while, we were invincible. A second murder, then a third. Banquo’s blood spilled in a ditch, and Fleance running like a rabbit through the dark. I watched my husband grow giddy with violence, each killing making him more a king, less a man. And I? I smiled. I poured wine. I held his hand when the ghost of Banquo sat in his chair—a ghost only he could see, mind you. The lords watched him scream at empty air, and I saved him. I always saved him. “Are you a man?” I asked, because shame was the only leash that still worked on him. “What do you mean

At first, I did not know. The doctor is too afraid to tell me, but I know now. I walk the corridors of this castle—this gilded tomb —with a candle, because I am terrified of the dark. I, who once summoned night to cloak my dagger. I, who laughed at the owl’s scream and the cricket’s cry. Now I cannot bear a shadow. I scrub my hands in my sleep. I see the spots of blood that are not there. I say the words I swore I would never say again: “Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?” Banquo’s blood spilled in a ditch, and Fleance

My husband is away now, hiding in Dunsinane, building walls of wood and bone and paranoia. The thanes are deserting him. The forest, they say, is moving . How fitting. Everything I touched to make us safe has become a cage. Every lie I told has grown teeth. And I am left with this—this terrible, absolute clarity. I wanted power for him, for us, for the burning thing inside me that could not be named. But power is not a crown. It is a mirror. And I have looked into it for too long.