by Andrew Mayeda Kevin Laminto They put us in a box and made us write. So I went to work, wrote poems. But also grocery lists, thought bubbles, screeds, epistles to the director of the NSA. “Why? Why? Why? Why? Why?” two-thousand six-hundred and forty-nine times. I counted. Then I met Ethel, and everything changed. ​It wasn’t love at first sight. She was leaning against a wall, vaping. Smoke rolled from her lips in the shape of moon jellies, Coney-Island carousels, Chinese dr