“I remember crawling to the table, how it was now a pile of soot, then dipping my fingers into it. My nails blackening with my country. My country dissolving on my tongue. I remember cupping the ash and writing the words live live live on the foreheads of the three women sitting in the room. How the ash eventually hardened into ink on a blank page. How there’s ash on this very page. How there’s enough for everyone.”
