Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me.

I had to go forward but part of me got stuck back. I wanted so badly to be pretty but there was something ugly inside me—a desperate child, and she wouldn’t stop screaming. I did everything I could to deny her—strangle her, drown her, deprive her—but no matter how skinny I got, the belly was just a hollow bowl she could hide in. She peered out from inside me as I fashioned idols and arranged them on the mantle: Madonna, Medusa, the Snow Queen, the Magdalene. Statuesuqe and starved for attention. Angular and empty as an angel. I bronzed my hair and braided it into coppery snakes. Make me an object—an offering—but don’t look at my face.

The truth can turn men into stone.

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