The American Ex-Wife

Potential Spam is calling again. Girls who read become women who think. Dear god, don’t let me die unspecial.

Potential Spam is calling again. The phone rings all the time, and they text me too: “Pretty Litter, flash sale! KELLI (in all caps), will you vote for Kamala? Hey, it’s Dolls Kill– 40% off everything PINK! *Priced as marked. Hey, Kelli! This is a reminder for your appointment. Act Blue: Did you see Judy Blume’s message?” 

I wish this wasn’t something that we have to talk about. It would really be better for me, but here’s the truth: I am a product to be bought and sold, and so are my ethics and my time and my body, the walking billboard. Exclusions apply. Don’t forget to show up on time!

They are trying to ban all the classics. Judy Blume texted me about a massive database cataloging censorship. Allen Ginsberg’s Collected Poems. Rupi Kaur. The fucking Color Purple. Vonnegut and Kerouac. John Green and Stephanie Meyer, too. Can’t anybody even go through a fucking phase anymore?

I guess they don’t want little girls growing up to know what we know. It would simply be easier for us all if nobody else turned out like me. Independent, resilient, intelligent. Girls who read turn into women who think. God forbid. 

I think they hate us because we women have the audacity to bleed. We possess the entire force of nature within ourselves. A cheshire grin and a gorilla grip. This is what I do best. 

Somehow, I agree. It would be easier for me, too, to be simpler and to not think for myself, but I know too much. I have Howled and been out On the Road and I have Broken Dawn and Stargirled until I myself became The Color Purple.

They’re banning 1984 because they think if people don’t read it, they won’t realize they’re being surveilled. The problem isn’t that we don’t know it. The problem is that we do know it, and we resign ourselves to it. We don’t even care anymore. So what if your nudes are leaked?

People will be so bored in 50 years, and probably, the super-rich will be super-richer, and likely, things will be even more unfortunate for the rest of us. Earlier today, I saw that RFK, Jr. says he’ll send people who take Adderall or mood stabilizers to labor camps to grow “organic food” for the masses. What a great solution.

It would honestly be better for me if you wouldn’t remind me of these things. I am too busy blasting blocks and rearranging Mahjong tiles, listening to podcasts about Charles Manson, marveling at the idea that even then, maybe I’d be better off. I could probably get away with continuing to numb myself. 

If not for the books. If it wasn’t for the books, I think I could play Solitaire all day, repeatedly spiraling a two-dimentional, virtual deck of cards back into itself for hours on end. 

But I still see myself as somebody who’s going to make something of herself. I still want to be Good-with-a-capital-G, even if it’s just that I’m Good-at something. I don’t want to die unspecial.

When I was a kid, I knew someone named January, and it made me so regretful to be named something plain, like Kelli. When I was born, my Nana convinced my parents to give me my dad’s middle name, so that when I became famous I could drop my last name if I want to, and just be Kelli Blake. It’s become a tradition–my cousin’s name is Blake. It’s my nephew’s middle name. I’m the only girl Blake, but still, I am not a January.

What I am is an apex predator: the American ex-wife. I eat affection, metabolizing attention until it turns the rose-pink petals of my bleeding heart inside out. I thrive on imagination, illicit dreams, a fiend for whatever’s cast out, unseen. 

Energetically, my bones are on the outside. My therapist says that grief, when misplaced, shows up as shame. It is molten but does not molt. Unfortunately, grief does not automatically drain away monthly. 

By standards of yore, every single woman I’ve ever met could be considered insane, deranged, hysterical, a danger to herself. I am nothing if not a danger to myself. So send me to the labor camps.

Women are so adept at denial. We spend our lives fervently denying that our darkest desires exist, until we almost forget that they do. A common thread runs between us: the truth that we wish to disclaim.

To be a well-read woman is to be depraved. Everyone you know is working hard to buoy a facade, to keep the dream alive. Not the dream they actually dream, but the dream of being normal, perfect. Not hysterical, but realistic. Not deranged, devoted. My mom still keeps my wedding dress.