A Billion Burning Dreams

If I Looked Like What I’ve Been Through If I looked like what I’ve been through, I’d have the face of a woman and a man contorted into a kind of in-between: Delicate and masculine with eyes that pierce and lips that tempt, with a jaw of glass that slices like obsidian, and a brow that collects beads of sweat, where ideas fall to their deaths. If I looked like what I’ve been through, I’d have a heart where my brain is supposed to be. I’d have a brain where my heart is supposed to be. And they’d constantly be switching — feeling, thinking. Fighting for what is right, neither able to decide who is winning. If I looked like what I’ve been through, I’d be wrapped in a three-piece straitjacket with cufflinks. Dressed to the nines in a canvas tux with the images that cloud my mind painted on. It’s... a metaphor for my artistic fervor, my former affliction transformed into brilliance, no less insane. If I looked like what I’ve been through, I’d have cuts so deep in my wrists that my hands would bend back as if attached with hinges. I’d have Bible pages rolled up and tucked inside the veins,

6