Cover Photo: This illustration has a gray background and shows a blond women sitting at the top of a tottering pile of empty yogurt containers. She is holding a bowl and her hand it lifting a fresh spoonful up to her face.
Illustration by Sirin Thada for Catapult

All the Things I’ve Loved to Death

Am I ever going to know where I hope to escape to? I understand that I’m trying escape from reality, but I’m still not clear on what the destination is.

I’m your number one fan. Can I please come to your factory sometime?

You feel like shit right now. But it’s not just now. You feel like shit all the time. Why?Drinking.

Is that true?

No, you’re fine.

Wow,I have no desire to escape myself today

throughThe only way out is through.

one

The only way out is threw. And thru. And through.

echo

I am so powerful now. I am doing so well nowI can do anything now.

Go home

No more food, it’s almost time to go further back home, back to the place that was home before home was a place.

The World Is on Your Plate: An Eating Meditation.

Do you want to go through the drive-through again?

Look! The pain is on the outside now! Can you see it?

Swan Huntley is a writer living in Los Angeles. Her novels include Getting Clean With Stevie Green, The Goddesses, and We Could Be Beautiful. She earned her MFA at Columbia University and has received fellowships from MacDowell and Yaddo. Her essays have appeared on Salon, The Rumpus, and Autostraddle, among others.