I recently had the opportunity to speak with Tethered by Letters’ founder and CEO, Dani Hedlund.

I choose to live in pain. Let me tell you why.

Wrapped in swansdown and silk, I was becoming smaller and smaller in your hand.

So to Speak strives to combat such rhetoric, which is why we asked our brilliant readers, friends, and colleagues to send us material on this topic that educates and inspires.

This piece is extracted from a collection of collage-poems called TENDER THE NIGHT. The collection takes its title from a famous novel, with a notable redaction.

We were as tall as the Hollyhocks were the year you had to leave me. When fairies could still be seen sleeping in the perfume of lilacs, and bumble bees loved the sweet flesh of snap dragons.