These are the only beautiful things to come from the evil I have done. I have become a man, Mama. Everyone told me to strive for a life I could call worth living. But now I find myself acting the way boys do when they are finally allowed to play at being men. Once, you asked if I felt good parading myself like those witches and demons in the holy books. The answer is: painfully, predictably yes. And somewhere beneath my own ribs, something is insufferably smug about it.