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TO ALL THE UNCIVIL WOMEN WHO DON’T TAKE SHIT FROM SHITTY MEN
For good men to carry me around on a palanquin made of the bones of bad men.
He makes a frustrated sound, which is familiar to her—many people make it when she speaks to them. It’s a primal exhortation of restrained disgust. Miriam has come to cherish the sound as a signal she’s being true to herself and not changing who she is to suit someone’s idea of pleasant interaction, because seriously, fuck all that right in the no-no hole.
“I want to fuck this coffee.” “You should probably let it cool down first.”
“Or maybe,” Miriam seethes, “men swim in a septic pool of bad ideas about tough guys and big dicks, and they float there, soaking in it, gulping down mouthfuls of that shit, and it gets inside them, infects them, makes their blood go black and sour. Fathers take their sons and shove their heads down under the water, too, just to make sure they all get a taste. Maybe men are fucking broken. You ever think that?”
Shortest time on a job ever, she thinks with pride so smug, it might as well be vegan.
The truth requires only itself, but a lie always needs infrastructure. It needs support. It needs other lies to hold it up, a realm of artifice to keep it running. It’s why lying is so much goddamn work: you often have to craft an entire fantasy realm just to convince somebody of a single untrue thing.
Fuck the fucking fuckers. Fuck the fucking lot of them, and fuck them if they think they can shame us for our incivility while trying to bring a hammer of sexism and racism and ableism down on our democracy. Fuck that noise. Evil people want you to be nice, because when you’re nice, it’s nearly impossible to point out the evil that they’re doing. Fuck nice. Be more like Miriam. Speak truth to power, with as many nasty words as you can muster.
