I’ve only had a handful of moments like that in my life – where I could see how thin the veil was between my happy, intact world and its complete destruction. How few steps there were between the mundane and the unthinkable. You can see why people stay quiet. Can you see, yet, why I speak up? Wouldn’t.

Sincerity is an easy target, but I don’t want to excise sincerity from my life – that’s a lonely way to live.

Maybe you are thin. You hiked that trail and you are fit and beautiful and wanted and I am so proud of you, I am so in awe of your wiry brightness; and I’m miles behind you, my breathing ragged. But you didn’t carry this up the mountain, You only carried yourself. How hard would you breathe if you had to carry me? You couldn’t. But I can.

You can hate someone and love them at the same time. Maybe that’s a natural side effect of searching for heroes in a world not built for you.

There is nothing novel or comedic or righteous about men using the threat of sexual violence to control non-compliant women. This is how society has always functioned. Stay indoors, women. Stay safe. Stay quiet. Stay in the kitchen. Stay pregnant. Stay our of the world. IF you want to talk about silencing, censorship, placing limits and consequences on speech, this is what it looks like.

The real scam is that being bones isn’t enough either. The game is rigged. There is no perfection.

Gay people wearing shawl-collar half-zip ecru sweaters does not oppress Christians. Christians turning their gay children out on to the streets, keeping gay spouses from sitting at each other’s deathbeds, and casting gay people as diseased predators so that it’s easier to justify beating and murdering them does oppress gay people. That.

Common Sense” without growth, curiosity, or perspective eventually becomes conservatism and bitterness.

So fine, if you insist. This is a witch hunt. We’re witches, and we’re hunting you.

One time, I noticed that the little waxy strips you peel off the maxi pad adhesive were printed, over and over, with a slogan: ‘Kotex Understands.’ In the worst moments, when my period felt like a death – the death of innocence, the death of safety, the harbinger of a world where I was too fat, too weird, too childish, too ungainly – I’d sit hunched over on the toilet and stare at that slogan, and I’d cry. Kotex understands. Somebody, somewhere, understands.