Gretel in Darkness:This is the world we wanted. All who would have seen us deadare dead. I hear the witch's crybreak in the moonlight through a sheetof sugar: God rewards. Her tongue shrivels into gas.. Now, far from women's arms And memory of women, in our father's hutwe sleep, are never hungry. Why do I not forget? My father bars the door, bars harmfrom this house, and it is years. No one remembers. Even you, my brother, summer afternoons you look at me as thoughyou meant to leave, as though it never happened. But I killed for you. I see armed firs, the spires of that gleaming kiln-- Nights I turn to you to hold mebut you are not there. Am I alone? Spieshiss in the stillness, Hanselwe are there still, and it is real, real, that black forest, and the fire in earnest. Anonymous
About This Quote

I’ve heard this story before, and it always seems to end with “we had each other.” But who had each other? I’d like to think that Gretel and Hansel did. It was a family of three: a brother and sister, and their parents. I’m sure that the two of them did love each other and that they wanted to stay together. At the same time, however, their parents were determined to keep them together at all costs.

They locked them in a room, away from everything they could possibly want, and left them there to starve. It was this kind of isolation that was killing them both: the physical hunger, but also the emotional isolation. The only person they could talk to was the witch who talked of revenge and death, while at the same time offering up false hope for salvation.

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