We are no phoenix. We do not rise in glory, wings fully formed, from the ashes of incinerated pasts. We are an amalgam of dust and skin flakes and bitten nails and tears and sweat held together by strands of broken webs of conversations and awkward embraces. We construct ourselves. Prickling and poking to patch together discarded stories, mending ourselves with knotted threads, embroidering rags and scraps into pockets we stuff with the healed bruises we call wisdom. We grow into ourselves. Until our bodies are large enough to sag and fold. Until our loose ends unravel and touch each other like the roots of neighboring trees and our wingspans are wide enough to wrap around all that we have become.

Amy Marques

has been known to call books friends and is on a first name basis with many fictional characters. She has visual art, poetry, and prose published in journals such as Bending Genres, Chicago Quarterly Review, Ghost Parachute, Gone Lawn, MacQueen’s Quinterly, MoonPark Review, South Florida Poetry Journal, and Streetcake Magazine.

You can read more at:
https://amybookwhisperer.wordpress.com