Fear affects me much like flame affects paper. At the edges, charring, blackening corners until they flake off. A sheet can stay a rectangle with rounded edges—a book can stay legible with its margins singed.

Take a lighter to the centre, however, and the instrument of emotion will be crippled. Bent over in the middle, curling in on itself at the first sign of smoke as if belief alone could quell what is already beginning to rage. It will crumple and bend like a girl being ravaged by her own body—like a boy experiencing insurmountable grief—like a child having its dignity ripped from it. It is a flame so bright that feeds on a thin thing so dull, so soft and brittle, that one may struggle to believe the kind of destruction it can harbor.