In conversation with Taos's rich artistic tradition and the brutal, binding legacy of colonization, Cárdenas writes through his transition, acknowledging that "to become a man means a lifetime of needles like the man who raised me." Here is pain and violence, but here, too, is the assurance that we are "built for this metamorphosis" and can follow our past incarnations "over scorched earth neon with new grass" to a future of our own making.