Now Is Not the Time to Panic

by Kevin Wilson

I wanted to see violence done in the name of fun.

But I was sixteen. I lived inside of myself way more than I lived inside of this town.

The edge is a shantytown filled with gold seekers. We are fugitives, and the law is skinny with hunger for us.

They’d think that maybe we had sex, those idiots, those dumbos. They wouldn’t know what we’d brought into this world.

Every single thing that you loved became a source of both intense obsession and possible shame. Everything was a secret.

But sometimes, when I think, for the millionth time, that I’m a bad person, I can still hear his voice, that single word, No, and even if I don’t entirely believe him, it’s saved me so many times.