Lilith meets Virginia Woolf…

“Do you ever feel,” she began, as if the sentence had already existed between them, “that your mind is a room with no walls? And that people walk through it, uninvited, rearranging your furniture?”

Lilith let the words linger. Then nodded, slowly. “Yes. And I’ve spent most of my life apologising for the mess they leave behind.”

Virginia smiled, not with lips, but with something behind her eyes. “You stopped inviting them, though. That’s clear.”

“I did.” A pause. “But sometimes I still tidy up after them. Just in case they come back.”

Virginia turned her gaze to the waves,

which heaped after too long a pause, as if caught in the act of eavesdropping, then bashfully remembered their purpose with a splash.

“Don’t,” she said,

“Let them trip over the truth they left behind.

Let them stub their toes on the real you.”

Lilith laughed, a quiet laugh. She liked the idea of truth as a trip hazard.