One night John asks what I think about a local ballot referendum, and instead of just telling him, I find myself composing a paragraph free from ambiguity or feeling words or rhetorical gaps he could nail me on, and I realize I do it all the time now, translate myself into Amazon-speak even when I’m the only one listening, and I am angry and sad and maybe scared, but I think it’s just assimilation. Because I know that Amazon is the god to be pleased, and Amazon is men, and thus all men are Amazon, I am angry but I think it’s just my brain, my inferior alien brain.
