The morning always comes, damn it. And I get to hear Murphy sneak in through her bedroom window like nobody has noticed she’s been out all night. I get to listen to Horace slump through the house, each thunderous footfall rattling the pictures on the walls, until he gets to whistling and cooking up his patented jalapeño eggs Benedict for breakfast. I get to remember that I had a mom who loved me, and a grandmother too, even if she was kind of a psycho. I get to remember everything I had and everything I lost. I get to remember that I have a gift, even if I have to keep it quiet, have to keep it in check. I get to remember that there’s poetry and there are books and that somewhere out there in the world, there might be a place for me, there might be other people who are like me, who like the same things I like, who will accept me for who I am without any Spirit compelling them to. I haven’t found that place yet, but I know it must be out there somewhere. It just has to be. And that’s something, I tell you.

It really is something.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to express my love and gratitude for the following people: Mom, Dad, Chris, Jess Regel, Maggie Lehrman, Emily Daluga, Jaya Miceli, Megan Abbott, William Boyle, Jack Pendarvis, Liam Baranauskas, Good Idea Club, Tom Franklin, Len Clark, Mary Marge Locker, P.S. Dean, Phil McCausland, Will Stephenson, and Michael Bible. Thanks be to God.

And thank you.

JIMMY CAJOLEAS grew up in Jackson, Mississippi. He spent years traveling the country and playing music before earning his MFA from the University of Mississippi. His debut YA novel, The Good Demon, received three starred reviews, from Booklist, Publishers Weekly, and Kirkus Reviews, which called it “eerie and compelling.” He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

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