How do we do right by the wronged people of the past without physical evidence of their suffering? How do we direct our record keeping toward justice?
-- Carmen Maria Machado (Dream House as Prologue paragraph 2)

Importance: In "Dream House as Prologue," the author explains the archival silence (the lack of representation in scholarship, media, and literature) that exists around abuse in queer relationships. In this quote, she wonders how we as a society go about correcting this injustice when there is a general lack of information available on the subject. Though Machado cannot single-handedly eliminate this archival silence, her story offers an example of queer abuse for the record, and her account may be helpful to other victims, past or future, that seek a better understanding of this topic.

Your female crushes were always floating past you, out of reach, but she touches your arm and looks directly at you and you feel like a child buying something with...
-- Carmen Maria Machado (Dream House as Inciting Incident paragraph 3)