guide to becoming the sun

1. you must want it more than you have wanted anything before. you must allow desire to consume
you. how far are you willing to go? what are you willing to do?
2. spend your days crafting wax wings out of downfeather, praying your bones will too become
hollow. draw a stone blade from its sternum to its pelvis and fill your hands with its guts. watch
tendons snap as you try to shove yourself into skin that is not yours. because you wish to have a
voice like the sky, because you desire formlessness, rootlessness: wrapped in birdskin, you stain
your mouth red with the pulse of the world.
3. the flame splutters. you cannot keep burning the candle at both ends. you cannot peel the
gooseflesh off of your hands. here is a brief truth: despite it all, you fear that you have never been
a healer.
4. here is a brief truth: things that remain unchanged destroy themselves. flay yourself open and peel back your ribcage. gnaw off your own arm. snap your spine in two. you are shackled. you must
break away.
5. don’t look up. there is a holy blade lodged in your body, a foreign object fighting to break free.
leave the arrow in the hollow cavity that you call a heart. let yourself burn.
6. remember that you wanted this.
7. look up. you’re too late. a moment after nightfall—haven’t you always been destined to miss the
sun by a little bit?
8. —there is a point of no return. you have strayed far enough. you have strayed too far.
9. the narrative unravels. a boy reaches for the wine-dark sea.
10. here is a fact to comfort you: you can never return home.
11. try again.
12. try again.
13. try again