When I’m older, I shall wear my restlessness as you wear a sunflower pinned to your coat. It will feed on the warmth of my contracting purple heart. Its head hung, it will sway, snoring gently. It will bide its time; its seeds will stir and mutter in their sleep, till white-hot ripeness builds up inside them, brewing, till it penetrates them, fills them to the brim, and explodes. My sunflower won’t bloom, it will burst in a supernova of heat, of scorched flower flesh, and smoke.

We see her on the street most evenings. She wanders around at night.
We recognize her by the cloud hovering above her hair; the cloud of black beetles with smoky lanterns reflected a thousand times in their wings. Dreambugs, buzzing around her head in a shimmering swarm, wrapped around her arms like a shawl, sliding off her shoulders, flirtatiously, in a black cascade. She scoops them up in her butterfly net; squeezes them in her small fists until the juice begins to flow in sticky amber drops.
This is where dreams come from.