Advice from the great women writers who inevitably killed themselves.

You fear taking a man for many reasons. You refuse to let him take care of you, fearing dependency and weakness, deterioration. You despise the social conduct of taking a man and being taken care of by said man. So you look for a woman. But you have troubles finding a woman who can meet your standards because those standards are standards set for yourself. How can you expect another to meet the standards you yourself believe you have not, could never meet? Your standards for yourself are the standards found in a man. You despise man because they are capable of being the you you wish you could be. A man never has to relinquish his self to become an equal or lesser part in a union deemed acceptable/inevitable in a patriarchal society where a woman alone is a woman only half real/valid/whole/accepted.

You fear taking a man and losing your self. You synonymize ‘relationship’ with ‘sacrifice’ and run. Newly whole, still growing, you fear growing into another being who could just as easily be ripped from you, leaving you severed and open. Do you think your self so weak? That a simple pruning could kill you? That you have not the wills to build back that which has been lost? Everything will be taken from you at some point. You have already sacrificed. You already know the ways of readjusting, of starting from nothing.

And here you sit, trembling before a being who you refuse to let get the better of you. You fear man. Woman, you fear men because you envy them. Because you try again and again to possess the upper hand. Do you so love exercising futility? You think yourself undeserving of anything good. Or possibly, that anything good should be expected from another person. The good comes from within you. You make it. It is well received because it was birthed from hard work and a dependence of self.

I am a maker of men. I am a starter of wars. I am an endless riddle. Come get me.