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Purity requires erasure.

Embroidering the Earth’s Mantle (1961) by Remedios Varo

Only a man can remain immaculate, from conception to death. A woman gathers flaws and faults, moss and muck, every desire a liability, every ambition a defect in her character, every need a weakness, every opinion an erosion of value, every new idea an obstacle to love. And every day there’s another mountain of skepticism and undermining and indifference to climb. This is why we divest.

But divestment means that we’ll sit on our hands and grit out teeth while this archaic tribe of self-fellating frat boys sends us back to the dark ages. We’ll bite our tongues and endure that old familiar feeling that the world will stand by silently and let us drown or burn without shedding a tear. You’re only innocent when you’re sleeping in a coffin made of glass. You’re only good when you’re free from desire, silent and still, unconflicted, self-sacrificing, a lamb on the altar, a virgin mother floating above the ground. You’re only pure when you’re dead and gone. Every breath you take is another mark against you.

You were never viable at all.

Where did you go wrong? You thought too much or not enough. You fell in love or you were too cold. You were too obedient or too unruly. You were too young or you grew too old. You trusted the wrong men or didn’t trust anyone at all. You ran too fast or you didn’t escape when you had the chance. You gave up or held back or disappeared or dug yourself a deep hole and hid there for years. You had high hopes, you were too big for your britches, you were too small for the shoes you tried to fill, you said too much, you bent over backwards, you didn’t stand up for yourself, you worked too hard, you were lazy, your no meant yes, you were deluded, your yes meant no, you were vain, you were selfish, you were impossible. You wanted too much or you learned to care less and less until you couldn’t care less. Not giving a fuck was your only grace or you were fucked and graceless, fucked and irredeemable, drowning or burning, born into sin and buried at the edge of the campground.

Life is the starting point of everything else.

Now we all sit still and wait for poor women to pay for the sins of the father. If men truly cared about women, a war would break out and these ghouls would be dragged out of the temple and into the streets. If rich women cared about poor women, if white women cared about black women, if Christian women cared about heathens, if Madonnas noticed that they were also whores, if there were room to be human, if desires weren’t atrocities, if flaws weren’t fatal, if complexity weren’t a liability, if escape weren’t necessary, if indifference didn’t feel like the only defense against a world gone mad, we wouldn’t sit back and watch these fiends condemn young girls to suffer, suffer and die for a brief glimpse of something that almost felt like love, suffer and die for the sin of being born in the first place.

Your sins began at conception. But these men have never sinned, not even once.

Most of us love that journey for them. Most of us just want to make sure that Brett and Tobin and Squi can keep jacking it to the sound of their own voices forever. Let these limp dicks hold us all at gunpoint. Never risk your ass to save a girl with nothing, a girl who feels like nothing, a girl who is nothing to you.

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Death is the starting point of everything else. Remember that you will die, then show your ass and leave it out. Gather your moss and muck and wear it proudly. Store up your gold to fund a holy war. Locate the whore inside you and celebrate her with every cell, as if your life depends on it, because it does. Your dirtiest desires keep you floating above the ground, your strongest opinions sharpen these swords, your conflicted heart is surrounded by golden light, your angriest face is painted on this cathedral ceiling. Don’t let their primitive stories cling to your skin, see the limp dick behind the lie, feel the heat of their shame in casual entreaties to engage, to stay tuned, to nod along, just long enough to cop a feel, just long enough to form you into an easy scapegoat, bleeding on their altars just to keep them blameless.

The one pure woman on the planet was impregnated by her divine father, then worshipped for her quiet suffering. What they want for you, at best, is a slow death. Instead, take the shape of devious laughter, decomposing ambition, giddy contempt. Gather your winged monkeys close and vow to stay wicked until they come for you, because they will come for you. All they really want is to come for you.

Behind your cold stone walls, celebrate vulnerability but also embrace toughness. Care for the weak but also teach them to fight with their bare hands. Whisper it at bedtime: Our passion will triumph, but we have to locate our passion in order to win, in order to survive. Without lust for life, we’ll stay alienated from each other, lost in our mazes of approval and need, circling the drain in search of validation that never comes.

But don’t give up hope. All these vengeful brutes have is fear and fire and buckets of water, but we’re not melting. Spread your message in the sky: SURRENDER. Moss and mulch, army of fools, sand that never runs out, axes and asses out. Stop shaking and crying and invite the witch into the room, let down your defenses, learn to share, break bread and break bad, turn the other cheek and love the other woman, queer boys and quislings and queen bees — filthy, expansive, ferocious, enduring. Remind your sisters and mothers and daughters and friends and frenemies and rivals and enemies alike: These poor girls, these lost girls, these nothing girls are our mothers, our daughters, our sisters, our saviors, our heroes, our only redemption, our one path out of hell. Without them, we’re nothing. Protect them. Beg them for forgiveness. Fight for them.

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