“

my power is NOT:
being sharp as a blade or hard as a statue or fast as a bullet or cold as an ice cube that won’t melt in your pretty mouth.
my power is NOT:
being soft as a marshmallow or sweet as a sugarcane or smooth as a pearl that you can hang around your slender neck.
my power and i are one and the same:
raised with war in our hearts, adrenaline in our bones like nitroglycerin reaching for a match, vengeance stuck between our teeth like copper pennies, seasalt under our dirty nails, dying daisies in our ink-black hair, bittersweet affections coursing through our veins like silver ropes.
so just like that, i am:
made of velvet kisses and a soft girl’s hands and steel-toed boots and brass sailor songs mixed with my brother’s quiet prayers and the urban legends told around a campfire. i am hard and i am cunning and i am soft. you’re going to beg for my rose-scented kiss and cut yourself on my edges, all in the same breath.

my power? it’s the entirety of me.

”