In my twenties, traveling alone in the Egyptian desert, I accepted a ride from a man I’d met at breakfast. He was a friend of the household that had given me lodging. I had a switchblade in my duffel but it was shouting that saved me, even as he covered my mouth with his hands. What if I were your sister? I yelled in Arabic.

*

Violence hovers with its angel wings, whispering, and a woman with downcast eyes listens. Erase the likely father—Roman soldier, archer in panther skin—and replace with the Father. How a virgin bears a child, how rape becomes an annunciation.

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In Why Facts Don’t Change Our Minds, Elizabeth Kolbert notes that humans easily find the flaw in others’ arguments but tend to discount information that doesn’t comport with their beliefs. Writers call this emotional truth.

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I have two fathers: blood and step. One who abandoned my mother and me, and one who adopted me: the fantasy and the lived—both long dead. Which one’s photos, do you think, line my bookshelf?

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“We’re always acting out the myth of ourselves,” says poet Sabrina Orah Marks.

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At sixteen, I was eager to lose my virginity, heavy as a diaper in need of changing. I remember the boy’s face hovering above, his beating breath. I remember closing my eyes, and listening for the burn. I felt different after, but no one noticed the swelling.

*

In the early days, many called Mary a slut. We have a name for that now: victim. blaming. Why tell you someone I love was drugged, woke up beneath a stranger? Whenever I tell a story—forget the named or nameless who appear in it—it’s ultimately about me. How I’m different/the same. Or maybe it’s about my grief, my helplessness, my resilience.

*

I’m lucky: I’ve only had consensual sex, a lot of it bad. Maybe because I grew up in the seventies when “bad” meant its opposite, meant (place the adjective du jour here_____), I get a thrill out of that word. Bad Bunny, Bad Sisters, Bad Betty. I’m biased toward names, titles like that.

*

“Confirmation bias” and hundreds of other words and phrases have been removed from Government documents. Every day, a new order alights, leaden on the shoulder. Language, we’re told, can fetter our freedom. Erase bound and replace with gagged. I know, I know. I should be grateful for the ground beneath my knees.

*

None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who (falsely) believe (they are free). Goethe gave us that bit of wisdom, and I give you parentheses, little fences. Perhaps I’ll build a manger with them, get a donkey. But you should do your own research.

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My mother wore a long blue coat with brass buttons like stars. I told her I liked her in it. It brought out the waiting in her eyes.