The Eyes Are the Best Part

by Monika Kim

I opened my mouth, unable to stifle the frustration growing inside me. It came up like bile, the need to say something mean and biting, the desire to cut her down for her stupidity. The want to make her feel small. But soon, that feeling gave way to sadness. I felt sorry for her. Sorry that every part of her life had been characterized by misery. Sorry that even now, she was suffering.

There are some things that you can never truly escape. Not really. Maybe that’s why, even now, she’s stuck in the past, long after everyone else has moved on.

More than anything, he hated that everything in his life served as a reminder of his failures. I don’t blame him. Maybe because I know what it’s like, to live a life so defined by want. That’s why I was able to recognize it in him—it was what I had been feeling for so long.

“I understand. I’m not good at comforting people either. I always say the opposite of what I’m supposed to say. I get it. I feel better already.”

What is it like to live freely, to live a life untethered, without having to be responsible for everyone around you?

The truth is that men like George seldom notice things unless they are directly involved in them. Men like him are stupid and oblivious, convinced of their own self-importance.

Not even my father, another man, can compare because George’s power doesn’t come only from the fact that he has a penis. It comes from his whiteness.

We girls are taught from an early age that we are demonstrably inferior to our male counterparts. We are smaller, weaker, stupider. When we succeed, it’s only because men allow us to.

to deal with a man like that, a man like George, you have to pull the rug out from under him. Not all at once, of course; a small tug here, another one there. You don’t back down when he tries to wield his power. Instead, you trip him up by slipping him little lies. Correct him whenever you can. Confuse him. Make him feel foolish. Men like him hate being wrong, hate being embarrassed, hate not being in control. Men like him don’t know what to do when that happens, and they resort to childish displays of anger, temper tantrums, sulking. In spite of this, he won’t be able to do a single thing about it because in the end he’s the one who is weak.

The only power he has is the power you are willing to give him, and you’ve given him nothing. Not a scrap.

By the time you’re done with him, he’ll be begging for mercy. Who is he if he can’t control you? Is he even a man anymore? It will seem like a relief when you give him a hand, even if that hand is holding a blade. And when you take everything from him, you can say what these men say about us: He was asking f...

How do I explain to her that the home I miss isn’t a place? It’s a time when my life made sense. When things made sense.

“I know that the plant is pretty, but poison is everywhere, even in the places where you least expect it.”