“You sound like you’re in love,” Abdumasi says. “I read that you can fall in love with someone before you’ve ever met them. And when you see them at last, you say, ‘Oh, that’s why I hurt,’ like you just found an old splinter buried in your foot.”

You’ve followed your curiosity to places I can’t go. Become someone I could never be. That makes me so proud. A daughter who’s more than her mother … that’s what I always wanted.

In these digestions of time the Body would come. She would put her cool, dead hands on your forehead and close your pumping eyelids with her fingertips, so that you could not see the sword nor the people.

Do you remember the time when we were little and I told you to stop fucking picking on me, because what if my other mum or dad was, like, important ? I remember. You said, what’s the evidence, and I said what’s the … not evidence.

He said, “Take care of your mother
Watch out for your sister”
And oh, that's when he gave to me
With his gun, with his head held high
He told me not to cry
Oh, my daddy said shoot.

It’s as false as you are. I don’t have to be in your narrative anymore, you or anyone else’s. You can’t give me anything I need, anything I feel. You’re only the shadow of a ghost of a ghost of the woman I love.

“Let me tell you a truth about Helios and all the rest. They do not care if you are good. They barely care if you are wicked. The only thing that makes them listen is power.”

Of course my flesh reaches for the earth. That is where it belongs.

And in these next 50 years you will eat so many delicious meals, laugh so many times with so many people you love, shout and scream and sing and cry and smile so hard your face hurts. And you will see such beautiful sunsets and feel fresh cold air on your face and feel warm and safe wrapped up in your favourite winter coat.

Because everything I do comes from that day when I was seven years old and I wanted to make my parents happy again.