“Hadn’t Cain Killed Abel for Less?”

Connie became pregnant, but my belly did not grow of child but of wild. And where her baby attached to her and sucked the life source, dormant things grew in me that only fed to feed again. And where her skin smoothed with life, mine grew sallow of contempt. And where she could no longer bring her knees or forehead to the floor in prayer, I made rakat after rakat in empty servitude — bargaining, reasoning, demanding. The single prayer I said was the baby prayer, the fastening prayer, the mooring prayer, the prayer that said I deserved more than what was received.

It reads like a smack-you-in-the-face-beautiful prose poem, but it’s actually nonfiction, a personal essay by Kima Jones about the impossibly tangled emotions of sisterhood. It’s blistering and beautiful and you should read it right now.

The piece appears in the first issue of a new online literary magazine called Midnight Breakfast, which — full disclosure — I contributed an interview to, and which is worth your time for the absurdly good-looking illustrations alone, like the one above by Lyndsey Lesh. I think I’m allowed to say that because my interview isn’t illustrated. Full disclosure: I don’t know how full disclosures work.