But you need it, you said. I thought you wanted to be beautiful. I slammed my hands on the wheel of your Land Rover and pulled over to the side of the road near the big houses with green lawns and trampolines, Norfolk Way.

Maybe it was the wind that blew her to the ground.

Maybe a subtle hollow she hadn’t noticed brought her down.

Either way, she ends up in the dirt.

Earth covers the soft pink fabric draped over her

Like paint splattered on a porcelain canvas.

A ransacked village in India is where my lineage began

Women.

Women, I will

And

Can never, ever know.

Tribulations my western brain

Cannot comprehend.

They made me.

I have the blood of

Hundreds

Even when she was young, Sonya had never been afraid of the supernatural.