“the browning of butter” by Sun

  fires usually happen at night, for me—

  grammarly tells me that’s not confident, and I find

  that small details & inconveniences offend

  me the most, like the way google docs capitalizes the

  first letter, every time, without fail, as I try and

  fail to be rebellious, and how the phrase the butter

  browns irritates me, or that the word tummy once made me hate

  my sister, and how I burned the butter just now, and I have nothing

  but cheese and an abundance of salt. & why is it so difficult to write

  a poem while making a quesadilla?

  My father taught me to make quesadillas: two flaps of tortilla and cheese and salt

  & crisp and now, sitting a country away, I am reminded that we will graduate

  from the same university, and that, at the time, I didn’t think to ask what he liked to drink,

  Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

  & now I’ll never know. but it was on the rocks, because memory has a funny

  way of mocking us, you & me, & how history repeats, & I remember

  you taught me how to shoot, & that one night, for no

  particular reason, I made a decision that I still remember—one of the few

  stories I carry with me, a heavy book, from childhood. Fires usually happen at night,

  and I wonder if grammarly was made with poets in mind, and if I’m being too direct

  when I say that slow drivers should die, & perhaps I only judge things as they relate to me,

  and that perhaps all I really mean to say is that I’m only indirect

  because now the quesadilla is burning, and the only thing I know about spanish

  is that two l’s sound like a y, and that your mother taught it once, and I wonder

  why it takes intrusive thoughts to remind me that bridges are very high, and hurt and healing

  only seem to happen in cars, and that you cursed me with your solitude, and I’d only

  commit theft for one reason, and I want to fucking punch the shit out of that mirror

  but I’m frightened of needles and nurses and you held me down on the table,

  and I think I punched the mirror, but self-inflicted wounds have a tendency to punish

  others, and the blood on my hands isn’t my own. A smell

  and the butter browned & I forgot to add the salt, but the quesadilla tastes just fine.