Jessica Bates

“I try to feel my own edges in the low light. I send my mind to the outer edges of me — where do I end?I send myself to my innermost edges,and I see that in both directions I am infinite.”

“I respond to many names.Sometimes I am different people.Sometimes I am the me that howls in the night.Sometimes I am the sickening silence.I wear moonlight in my hair and bare my teeth.”

“One day his fingers will grow knobby, he will start to sag. I pray to the goddesses, the gods, the eggs, the clouds, the trees. I pray to the wind that he will grow old and die well.”