pigmenting: “My fire-eating career came to an end when I could no longer tell when to spit and when...

pigmenting:

“My fire-eating career came to an end when I could no longer tell when to spit and when to swallow. Last night in Amsterdam, 1,000 tulips burned to death. I have an alibi. When I walked by your garden, your hand grenades were in bloom. You caught me playing loves me, loves me not, metal pins between my teeth. I forget the difference between seduction and arson, ignition and cognition. I am a girl with incendiary vices and you have a filthy never mind. If you say no, twice, it’s a four-letter word. You are so dirty, people have planted flowers on you: heliotropes. sun- flowers. You’ll take anything. Loves me, loves me not. I want to bend you over and whisper: “potting soil,” “fresh cut.” When you made the urgent fists of peonies a proposition, I stole a pair of botanists’ hands. Green. Confident. All thumbs. I look sharp in garden shears and it rained spring all night. 1,000 tulips burned to death in Amsterdam. We didn’t hear the sirens. All night, you held my alibis so softly, like taboos already broken.”

— Daphne Gottlieb, “Why Things Burn”