It Begins with Our Mothers

Good girls don’t make scenes; keep your mouth, legs, and eyes shut. Listen, but not too well: men like their women agreeable; nod, like you’re giving a blow job. Don’t sleep around, lose virtue, the sacred gift. The perfect woman has a baby without ever being fucked. So keep your second mouth closed tighter. The only thing it should speak is babies. Did Mama forget the blood of 20 or 30 years? How confused I was to see spots on my panties, like someone snapped a picture. Blinding light circles. Mama caught me using a tampon and said I’d break my hymen. At dinner, proud as a pimp, she told my father and brother: Today my little girl became a woman. They had no congratulations. I sank lower under the fork-to-mouth silence.