Now Is Not the Time to Panic

by Kevin Wilson

Maybe it was better to be ugly if the alternative was to be plain.

We didn’t understand how normal this was, to be young, to believe that you were destined to make beautiful things.

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

I wanted her to understand that there was something so much weirder inside of me, even if she didn’t know exactly what it was.

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