Vladimir

by Julia May Jonas

I’ve always felt the origin of anger in my vagina and am surprised it is not mentioned more in literature.

I am a short woman.

I was a professor of literature, a mother to Sidney, and a writer. What did I want with a husband who wanted my attention? I wanted to avoid, and I wanted to be avoided.

Never will I love as they love, or hate as they hate, or want what they want with such strong and solidified identification.

Over and over she had to show up to the promise of her own potential.

It was always that—a man could always make me feel worse than anything any woman could ever say to me.

And if she did choose to cook or clean or worry, at least she could maybe do all those things for a woman who understood, not a man who, by virtue of being born with a thing between his legs, had absorbed from an early age that it was all right to sit back and enjoy being served.

“You look thin.” “Thank you.”

Compliments made you supplicant, equal, and master all at once. Supplicant because you are below, admiring; equal because you have the same taste; and master because you are bestowing your approval.

I was of age, but I was a child. He had complimented me, praised me, made me feel as though I had something to offer the world, but that was only courtship, I finally realized. I had taken it as truth.