Audio: Read by the author. 

 

I am a woman unlikely to write.
The foggiest ideas come to me

malevolent and hopeless; I have
only the urge to strike them. My mind is

a dark enough place without me drawing
blood from it. But let’s suppose that there is

a spotlight waiting within the heart,
and the heart is innocent because it is

made of paper and can be cut, and the hurt
is good health. A cut would give me reason

to type. I could put my finger on the hurt;
I might like the pressure. What would come

of a paper heart made raw by the spotlight?
Or a plaster head left out in red rain?