brighter. On star platform, had too much to

I was sensing the eternal in the ephemeral.

What she liked was being in charge of her. Her body, her mind. Her thoughts, her career, her future.

Dad had once said, Trust your mind, Rob. If it smells like shit but has writing across it that says Happy Birthday and a candle stuck down in it, what is it? Is there icing on it? he’d said.

epaulets.

Sometimes, feeling happy like this, she imagined a baby deer trembling in the woods.

verboten

It was that impossible thing: happiness that does not wilt to reveal the thin shoots of some new desire rising from within it.

coalesced