BOOK DESCRIPTION Natasha Deonarain paints a vivid post-pandemic landscape that takes the reader on a journey of love, loss and fragility. While peeling back disturbing layers of our dystopian lives, she nevertheless weaves a resilient spirit of courage throughout the book that fortifies hope for our future. The reader begins, submerged in the forced happiness of city life. This is a time and place where we “binge netflix— / fist-stuff slapstick down your throat”; a haunting acquiescence that leaves us willing to do “anything to feed the blood-thirsty hound.” The journey continues through the lonely desert-scape of Arizona, sweeps across the peaked mountains of Canada and into the smog-filled traffic jams of Colorado, finally bursting through tempestuous purple skies to unveil a whole-world perspective contained in our secret prayers for Mother Earth. Her last poem is not so much an end to this journey, but a wake-up call for a new beginning, a dream-like utopia that truly belongs to every one of us, should we choose to claim it—“A lover’s candied kiss under an indigo sky and stars— / Of infinite possibility.” In this book, Natasha not only showcases our personal anguishes that are tied to our collective experiences, but also fuels the reader’s sense of urgency to unceasingly fight for the boundless beauty of a world that’s slipping away, right before our eyes.