Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance

by Alison Espach

You didn’t understand why it was cool for some girls to be stupid and embarrassing for other girls to be stupid. You didn’t understand why everybody made fun of Melissa Frank for being slow and not knowing how to spell her own name, but everybody applauded Lisa for not knowing who Gandhi was.

Our punishment: go outside and say the ugly word into each one of these little sandwich baggies. Don’t come back in until all the ugly words are out of our systems and sealed up into these baggies where they belong!

“Oh, people at the mall don’t care what we’re saying. Do you think the people here care? No. Sally. Vagina vagina vagina! See? Nobody cares. And that’s something you’re going to have to learn. People don’t care about things as much as you think. People will forget all about the two vaginas. People are people.”