The Women Will Survive
APRIL 22, 2023I have always wanted to be a girl for someone. But I have too much dignity to be a girl for the boys. Being a girl for them means leaving it all behind and acting as if my existence just began. I was born for them. Perfected by a God they don’t believe in to be everything they want.
The boys share beliefs, lies, and women. When cockroaches run across the floor of their SoHo loft they kill them together, and they laugh. They let masculinity seep from their pores onto the Roche Bobois couch. There are no rules. They are so free. The boys have so much. And they wish I had more. Something to show their boys. They wish I was good enough because I’m right here and if I was good enough they could stop searching for a girl to save.
The boys don’t care for me. I’m not worthy of saving, I’m just a girl. The boys think my stories are stupid. When I speak their eyes glaze over like marbles and they always respond, “That’s cool.” The boys don’t understand my words, I speak a foreign language unless I’m speaking about porn or sex or being victimized. They listen when I speak about being victimized. They feel bad for me and they are reminded of their own humanity. They think it’s sweet that I’ve been hurt. The boys are so glad they don’t have to be rapists. The boys are proud to have found their corruption in other realms.
The boys don’t ask me many questions, but I have all of my answers prepared. The boys are telling me how long they waited to have sex with their ex-girlfriends because their ex-girlfriends were virgins and the boys are good boys. They can prove it, they waited so long. They want me to know about the girls worth waiting for because they are the same girls worth saving. They hope I’ll take their hints.
The boys think I smoke too many cigarettes, that’s gross, and each time I light one on their couch they look at me with their marble eyes. They wonder which one of them I’m going to fuck and when. They wonder why I keep lighting cigarettes and telling stories when I should be silent or naked or good enough. They wonder if their stories about being so good nullify my stories about other boys being so bad. They wonder if they’ve proved their good boy-ness.
I wonder if the boys believe in God. I wonder how much they love their sisters and their mothers. I wonder why they enjoy killing the cockroaches.
The boys are talking about the end of the world. The boys can’t wait for the world to end. The boys have bunkers and they are so excited to survive. The boys can bring one woman each. That’s why the boys are searching for the one worth saving. Women who are easy within a union. Women who understand business and infidelity. Women who will bear beautiful babies. Women who were born for them. Women who want to be saved.
When a woman has already lived too much life, or when she seems too difficult to save, the boys don’t make it obvious. They pose questions like, “What’s her deal?” And expect someone else to concur with her hopelessness. I wonder who they asked about my deal. If they asked me directly I could affirm what they already know, I wasn’t born for you.
I’ve lived too much life, I would be too difficult to save. I can’t fall in line. I don’t see the value in your mercy. I don’t want you to take anything of mine and show it to your boys. I don’t want to take your hints. There is no cage gilded enough.
I wonder if they could look at me then, with their marble eyes, and nod and say, “That’s cool” in response.
If the boys asked me more questions, I could use more of my prepared answers. I could tell them how stupid I think they look, expecting a woman to be born for their saving. Born only to live in their bunker, to survive for them, to make them good boys and beautiful babies. Made victims only to remind the boys of their humanity. Women valued upon a squish or save basis.
I would tell them that they don’t understand my stories only because my words aren’t soft and malleable, and they cannot be softened by “what’s her deal?” or the promise of saving. I would tell them that women are just like the cockroaches in their gaudy apartment and that the only thing we need to be saved from is the possibility they will kill us and laugh; before we can prove our ability to survive without them.