Women were for sex and birth, and for spinning and weaving and lamenting at funerals. It was the women and girls who did all the mourning for the loss of kin. Their voices were higher and had more effect as they wailed and tore at their clothes. The men stood further back while the women did the expressing for them. My problem is that I want to smoke the cigar and for someone else to light it. I want to blow out smoke. Like a volcano. Like a monster. I want to fume. I do not want to be the girl whose job it is to wail in a high-pitched voice at funerals. A snake. A star. A cigar. Those were
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