"This is not the first time girls have been burned alive in the city."

This summer's poetry letter-writing collaboration, a preview. Pretend we made a trailer like for a movie, and there is a viola playing something mournful and a rumbling voice speaks vaguely of the fantastical things to come.

Delusions are characterized by three things

Your mistake was trying to prove me wrong. Just because I am not, now, a little matchstick, burning up my sulfur ‘til I’m black and hurt your fingers – just because this is not what you see now doesn’t mean it won’t become true. I have dreams. I have seen my face in the newspapers. One eye witness saw me kiss a boy before he threw me. Another swears he fell upon me in the elevator shaft, my hands ribboned by the cable and broken glass. I don’t remember how it will go.

...

Chemistry. What is chemistry? On the ninth floor, we stitched together the smell of cherries. The Bunsen burners flicked their wily tongues. I saw the whole thing explode all over again. Do you see now why I had to?


More from the man who paints pictures in the eyes of needles.

& Antelopenvelope has a pretty graphic with all our names on it.