How to Be Eaten

by Maria Adelmann

Men don’t have to pretend to be good, I thought. In fact, they’re supposed to be a little brutal.

“I’m saying that if you can’t trust the world to behave how you thought it would—if the impossible becomes possible—then you’re open to believing so much more,”

“Just because you agree to something doesn’t mean you aren’t being taken advantage of,”

“It’s ridiculous, but I always thought of that photo as the end of your story. It never actually occurred to me that you’d grow up.”

morals create a labyrinth of rules geared toward blaming the victim,”

“Be patient, be kind, be good, say please, say thank you, don’t speak unless spoken to”—

“Maybe don’t even be out there, on the street, not if it’s dark, not if you’re alone, not if you’re a kid, not if you’re a woman, not without a rape whistle around your neck, not without pepper spray clutched in your hand, not, anyway, if you’re wearing that outfit.”

You can’t change the past, but it’s infinitely reframeable. You can tell the same story over and over a hundred different ways, and every version

is a little right and every version is a little wrong.