Shani Boianjiu
The seventh night of boot camp, they take my gun. “Kitchen duty,” they say. “Go tomorrow morning.”
Night is the now. My field bed shakes with me. The nearby beds screech as metal touches metal. The tent hums silence back; eighty-four girls breathe the summer in their sleep. Then, one wakes. I hear her through the darkness—her skin strokes the rubber mattress.
“Is it family? You miss your family?” she whispers.
I am gasping for a . . .