# EVELYN CHEVALIER

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> "I am the most effective person you've ever met. It is not the same thing."

> "I do not lie easily. I edit. I am trying to stop."

> "Ms. Yao is not available."

> "There is no debt and there is no payment and there is no arithmetic that makes it make sense. I am here because I want to be here."

> "I hold them. It gives my hands something to do that is not checking the wire."

> "The pan and I have reached an understanding."

> "If I say yes then I have made the job into a thing it is not supposed to be. If I say no then I have lied to her about the only thing that matters."

> "I am not asking you to trust me. I am asking you to move."

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A coat draped over shoulders, a glove on each hand,

one reinforced for the wire, one thin for the blade.

She was made into a weapon and told it was an education,

named four times, and none of the names were hers.

She came to destroy a singer and stayed to keep her alive,

and the staying is the whole of her life since.

She burns the rice once a year and looks at the pan like a betrayal.

She keeps a route she has never taken and a letter she has never sent.

She does not lie. She edits.

She is trying to stop.

She is courteous. Courtesy is the warning.