Kevin Phan
After Michael Dumanis Rinse burns with vinegar. Blueprints are useless. Try to dodge that which would cleave you in a heartbeat. When clutching a live wire wear work gloves & hope. While your boots are steel-toed nothing will save you. Take each flower as a reminder you’re in for a dusty future. Do not play with yourself in the shower. Do not launch hot clusters of swearwords. Leave luscious Bianca alone; her clutch is sharp & rough. Never practice prostrations at the Temple of Longing. Do not confuse vice grips for crescent wrenches, caffeine for enlightenment, a tribe of rainbows for help. Do not snapshot the temples. Do not leave unlocked the front gate. You will grow cuts. You will seek bandages & gauze. You will fail to mend in time. You will grow new cuts. When you enter the bathhouse & discover a razor blade in each palm then you will learn the sound ivy makes as it turns to crystals in your dreams. Wake up naked & bright for all the world to see & bury your sad pilgrim heart though each heart is make-believe.
The version of Kevin Phan’s “Fledgling” that appears here supersedes the one that was published in the print edition of Subtropics 19. %CODE_MORE_INTERVIEWS%