I didn’t realise I was a blaze until I was twelve and the blood boiled beneath skin until I cut it open—(free free free free free free)—and my best friend asked me what is this before saying I love you over and over until she cried. I didn’t cry. I haven’t cried in a long time.

I have been hating my pulse for so long I do not remember how it felt to be grateful for the thud of my heart—I wish there was a wikihow on how to ruin your body in the most satisfying way possible. I would read that until it was burned into my eyelids, I would whisper it until my mother still hears it years after I’m gone, words poured into the walls of my childhood bedroom.