“At home, I have a poster on my wall of a rose that’s bleeding. Its petals are white, and red liquid oozes from its heart, thick and glistening warm. Only, if you look very close, you can see the droplets are coming from above, where a little girl’s wrist—camouflaged by a cluster of leaves—has been pricked by thorns as she reached inside to catch a monarch.I used to wonder why she risked getting sliced up just to touch a butterfly. But now it makes sense: she wanted those wings so she could fly away, because the pain of trying to reach for them was more tolerable than the pain of staying grounded, wherever she was.Today, I embrace that child’s perfect wisdom. What I wouldn’t give for a set of wings . . .”

− A.G. Howard −