itâs not about that i know how to do laundry. itâs that when i was four i knew how to fold clothes; small hands working alongside my mother, while my older brother sat and played with his toys. itâs that i know what kind of detergent works but my father guesses. itâs that in my freshman year of college i had a line of boys who needed me to show them how to use the machine. itâs that the first door they knocked on belonged to me. itâs that they expected me to know.
itâs not that i know how to cook. itâs that the biggest christmas present i got was a little plastic kitchenette i never used except to climb on. itâs that my brother used it more, his hands ghosting over pink buttons and yellow dials. itâs that when my work needs cake for a birthday, they turn to me. i get it from costco. i donât even like cooking. a boy burns popcorn in the dorm microwave and laughs. a week later, i do the same thing, and he snorts at me, âjust crossed you off my wife list.â itâs that i had heard something like this so many times before that i laughed, too.
itâs not that i donât love being feminine. itâs that i came home with bruises from trying to be a trick rider on my bike and heard the word âtomboy,â felt my little mouth say, âbut iâm not a boy, iâm a girlâ. itâs that they laughed. itâs that until i was sitting in my pretty dress and smiling with a big pretty smile and blinking my big pretty eyes, i wasnât given back the title âgirlâ. itâs that until i wore makeup and styled my hair i was bullied; itâs that when i donât wear makeup iâm a slob, that my mental health diagnosis hangs on the hook of being dressed up. itâs that my therapist sees me returning to bright red lipstick and tells me i am looking happier and i have to explain that i am more sad than i have ever been. itâs that i dress myself in as many layers as i can every time i ride a train because itâs better to be laughed at than harassed.Â
itâs not that i know how to clean, itâs that my brotherâs chores were outside where i wanted to be, and mine were inside. itâs that i would have weeded the garden better than he did if they had just let me. itâs that i am put in charge of fixing otherâs messes, expected to comply without complaint.
itâs not that i canât open the jar. itâs that you ask my brother first every time. itâs that i am pushed into docile positions, trained to believe that my body when itâs strong and healthy is ugly, trained into being less, weaker. itâs that the jar is also science, is also engineering, is also every job, every opportunity. itâs that you laugh faster when he tells a joke, that you take him seriously but wave off me, that when he raises his voice heâs assertive but when i do iâm hysterical. the jar is getting into a car with a stranger as a driver and wondering if this is our last ride. the jar is knowing that if something happens to us, itâs our fault.Â
itâs that iâm weak and i donât know if itâs because i just am or i was trained to be. itâs that we need to sit pretty with our pretty smiles and our pretty words trapped pretty and silent in our throats, our hands restless but pretty when idle, our bodies vessels for nothing but a future white dress. itâs that we are taught someone else needs to open the jar for us.
hereâs the secret: run metal lids under hot water, theyâll expand faster than the glass theyâre around. hereâs the secret: when you keep us under hot water, we do more than boil. we expand over our edges. and we learn how to open our mouths, our claws, our screams hanging in kites over cities. just give me a chance. give me a chance when i am four when i am seven when i am twenty-three. i promise i can be amazing. give me the jar. iâll show you something.
