a man tries to sell me something 
gina twardosz

1.

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I’m scrolling through TikTok, letting the sounds fill the room to stave off the silence of my studio, when a man says, “I’ve fallen in love...” In a split second, I am awake. I feel tenderness for him and all of mankind. Yes, I’ve fallen in love too, many, many times. It doesn’t always work out, but I’m intoxicated by the act of traipsing wildly after the object of my affection. 

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“I’ve fallen in love…” he continues, “with cacao-flavored Soylent.” I feel like he’s speaking some strange, new language. I don’t even know what he’s talking about until he flashes the product across the screen, and then I realize that, all along, this has been an advertisement. 

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2.

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Flash Flood! Do not travel. 

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I look at my phone with dismay. On Sundays, I go to the farmer’s market with a little cash and attempt to make a meal from whatever I scrounge up. Then, I get a beautiful pastry at a small cafe in the front half of an extremely expensive restaurant. The entirety of my sanity rests upon my ability to do this every Sunday, apparently, and I feel myself falling off the ledge every second that goes by. I throw on a coat and boots and head out into the storm. 

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Soaked so thoroughly that my jeans bleed indigo onto my legs, I arrive at the cafe. The barista looks up at me, startled that anyone would attempt to patronize any establishment in the area before noon. I’m so exhausted from my short walk, sopping wet and frustrated. I look at all the beautiful baked goods in the box, and for a moment, I don’t even feel hungry. I pick the two most luxurious-looking desserts (an orange olive oil mini bundt cake and a slice of blueberry buttermilk crumb cake) and ask for them to go. I should stay and eat them as the cafe is empty, warm, and dry, but I feel shame gently rise to flush my cheeks so I go. 

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When I get back, I’m even wetter, from my socks to my hair to my little box of pastries I tried so desperately to shield from the storm. I open the box and am relieved to see that the pastries are dry, albeit smushed with delicate frosting smeared onto the sides of the box. I don’t even care at this point: I take off my wet pants and sit on my bed, picking up the piece of cake with my hands and shoveling it into my mouth. It’s good, so good that I stop tasting it and just eat, stuffing myself to feel full. Crumbs are falling onto my bed and the floor, and I’ve made so much more work for myself today. Now, I must vacuum and mop the floors. When did it all become so hard? I’m crying, licking frosting off my fingers, and I go in for the next dessert. 

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3.

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I have a penchant for vintage wash blue jeans with a button-fly. I’ve been programmed to want them from a very young age like hereditary brand loyalty. I grew up with only my father and his brother to look toward for advice. I’d see them watching television together, commenting on the beauty of all the women flashing across the screen. 

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“She’s hot,” I’d hear my father tell my uncle, “with those old-fashioned jeans. I wish I had someone like her around.” 

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I can’t remember the movie, but I remember the girl: a thin blonde who pulls her loose jeans up over her briefs in one jump. It’s sort of a masculine outfit, but I have always viewed this as the pinnacle of femininity. I’d hear my father and uncle commiserate about their youth, girls they knew who’d been the same way, looked or dressed the same, and I wanted to be as desired as these phantom girls. And so, I have always bought straight-leg, button-fly blue jeans. I purchase my empowerment; I buy myself the woman I want to become.  

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I’ve learned from men how to become a woman. When my mother cheated on my father, I internalized the word ‘slut,’ wielded like a weapon at her, although I was a casualty of this war. If men perceive a woman as bad or ugly, she is exposed, tried, and expelled from their kingdom. Her acceptance is theirs alone to allow or deny, and I am still learning how to undo the knot of my self-worth from the rafters of what others believe. 

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4. 

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After my parents divorced, my father laid waste to whatever my mother left behind. Jackets were given away; underwear was ripped and scorched; tchotchkes punted down the block. I distinctly remember my father driving fast down a dark highway, flinging my mother’s old CDs out the window. Knees guiding the steering wheel, he’d pop open a case, slip the disc out, and send it flying into the night like a deadly frisbee, slicing at the insects outside—multiplied and multiplying—in the soft, humid summer air. He kept asking me for more and more; the last disc was Cher’s Believe. 

 

“Wait,” he said, “I’ve always liked this one.” Instead of throwing it out the open window, he inserted it into the car’s CD player. Cher’s music soon overwhelmed the two of us. Do you believe in life after love? Do you believe in life after love?

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When the song was over, that CD was sent flying, too. 

 

5.

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I dated D when I was twenty-four. On our third date, we went to a cheap sushi place below my apartment where D felt embarrassed because he couldn’t hold chopsticks. All these years later, I regret using mine. 

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He was talented in the way he could make anyone feel desirable. He loved long looks, and he asked a lot of questions. We both loved movies, everything about them. At the restaurant, I asked him about his celebrity crushes. He mimed The Thinker, pausing to consider the wide variety of options.  

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“Ana de Armas,” he said after a moment, and I nodded in approval. Inexplicably, I felt secure in our shared features: brown hair and light eyes, short and petite. 

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“Florence Pugh,” he said after another minute, and I frowned. 

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However irrational, I thought: She’s blonde and British, and I am none of those things. I could only conceive of loyalty if I fit the profile of his type. I was conflicted, worms in my brain beginning to writhe, growing in hunger, searching for stability in the mass of my growing insecurity. Would he always be searching for a better blonde? 

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6.

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I love the soreness of my thighs after sex. I love feeling sore after anything, like the tenderness of my muscles after working out or even just working hard. I used to scoop ice cream in the summers, and after every shift, my arms and wrists would be nicked or bruised but sore. In this dull, pulsating pain, something felt tangibly earned. I had donated my body to the labor, and in turn, the labor had reminded me that I am alive, warm-blooded, breathing, and that I ache. 

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But the lie of capitalism is that it’s a merit-based system. One believes, however erroneously, that the harder they work, the more they will achieve. I used to think that sex was one of the last few experiences that didn’t cost anything, but now I think it costs us everything. Does sex give women capital, or does it take it away? I can’t put my finger on this give and take, push and pull, pulse after pulse after pulse as we beat on in search of power. I need something to hold on to. I have always worked the hardest at my relationships, only for them to fail. What does it mean to truly lose someone? People are not objects to be kept; I know this, and yet…and yet; and yet, in bed, I have a praise kink—tell me that I’m doing a good job, tell me that you love it so I know you’ll never leave.  

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7.

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D breaks up with me months after sushi and I torture myself looking for the woman who’s replacing me. I pass the time by stalking his Instagram, where I discover a new female follower. I spend countless hours trying to determine if they’re dating. I make a habit of watching her Instagram stories, worrying that he might appear in the background, happy, and laughing. I critique her lifestyle; I watch the saved story of her riding her horse over and over again—is this why I wasn’t chosen? I’ve never had a horse, fancy clothes, or spontaneous familial trips abroad. I let my self-worth rest precariously on the worthy perch of another. 

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Instagram shows you who is watching your stories, but I rarely look. Sometimes, I’ll scroll through the list of watchers to block the sexbots, and that’s when I first noticed that she was watching me, too. 

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“So, he told her about me,” I tell my friend, both exasperated and excited. 

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“Or, she noticed you were watching her stories and wants to figure out why,” she reasons. ​

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Her interest in me is gasoline on my grill, fueling the consumptive self-comparison. Why she and not me? Does she love him like I did? 

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I feel like such a little girl; confused and immobile, I cannot separate wanting from needing. I want, I want, I want. I want so much it physically hurts me. I want him to pick me, pick me, pick me. I’m not good enough—his love would make me good, right? Wouldn’t his love make me whole? 

  

8.

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Women couldn’t have a credit card until 1974. I feel liberated when I use mine to bury myself in a mass of things. I bond with my things, hell, I even love my things, and when I grow tired of them, I just go to the store and buy another thing—a similar thing—that wants my love as much as the first thing. I bought this thing, I earned this thing! Isn’t there power in accumulating things? Life feels a little less lonely, tip-toeing around all the things I have acquired, or maybe I’ve got it backward: It somehow feels more lonely amidst my endless array of things that cannot hold me or tell me they love me. I do not own them; they own me. 

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They tell us that lonely women should prioritize self-care, like buying candles, chocolates, flowers, and wine, all for themselves, because this is how you stand up for yourself. It’s a trap meant to switch your dependency from one lover to an inanimate other. It’s scary to admit, but we do need each other. Look at me. All my sentences begin with I. I’ve developed a hunger—a need for it all—so rabid that I’ve squandered everything that meant something to me. I ruined it with my iron clasp, clutch of death, nose buried into a lover’s armpit with a whiff of men’s deodorant. I’m intoxicated by the scent of $5.99 powdered spearmint or the smell of laundry detergent, dryer sheets, and mothballs. All my mementos of this love are hollow. Worthless. Look at all the things we never got to experience together. I wanted to be the object of your affection, so I became an object. 

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9. 

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My friend takes me to a rage room: A new way to spend money that allows participants to smash and break whatever junk is in the room. You could likely find a way to do this for free—performing your rage on nearby unsuspecting objects—but this is safer, albeit more expensive, and all the more legal. She takes me because we must always move forward. People aren’t allowed to stand still and just feel. We have to channel those feelings into something always like we are a means to an end and not the end itself. 

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We’re given goggles, gloves, and rubber mallets, and then they let us loose into a cage filled with useless items. She starts smashing right away, but it takes me a minute to allow myself to wind up the hammer. I don’t feel rage; I’m sad, maybe even disgusted. I don’t want to break or be broken.

 

But we paid a lot for this hour-long experience, so I drop a glass bottle and watch it shatter. Panic overtakes me, and I feel like running away, so I move around the room and strike at some plates on the ground. I spy a busted DVD player and focus on it: If I am not enough, then it is not enough. I start hitting it, letting the banging sound overtake any willfulness of the action until pieces of black plastic start flying, and I become robotic, completely unable to stop. There is only the droning of the fans, the sound of violence claiming this space, and the thoughts in my head buzzing, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, and what is all this worth? What is everything but easily eviscerated in the end? Isn’t it all replaceable? Am I alone enough without someone deciding I’m worth keeping?

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10.

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It’s early morning—the sun has barely risen—and I’m waiting for the train to go to work. I manifest motivation by reminding myself that each paycheck helps me purchase necessities. The platform is almost deserted, except for an elderly white man wearing a full traje de charro. He’s alone, carrying a small plastic bag emblazoned with a sombrero. This must be his work uniform, and in the softly pink-lit city, he is either starting or ending his shift. 

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He fiddles with his hat, sequins glinting, and it all feels so tragic and comedic. There’s nothing inherently sad about someone working to make a living, but it feels like there is no end to labor; we’ll never be able to rest. We have to slow down, or we’ll die.

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What does it mean to age in a world where living year after year is an extraordinary feat, but companies constantly sell us products to hide our wrinkles, crow’s feet, and laugh lines? These are my rewards for living—this is my proof of life. 

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11.

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Quietly, I walk over to the window and watch men standing inside a cherry picker try and light the old theater marquee. The street in front of my apartment building is often shut down so the local movie theater can replace its neon sign. Replace or relight: I’m not exactly confident in my understanding of neon mechanics. Each month, I watch sections of bright red neon tubing burn out. It’s the only time I can sleep without interruption, as the glow usually slinks through my blinds, coating my midnight walls in a soft strawberry glow. Sometimes, I wake up and feel as though I’m suffocating or that there’s an emergency. There almost never is. 

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The street is never “legally” shut down—that is to say, never with rope or construction crews shuttling traffic through at cautious intervals. Rather, the workers and the crane needed to reach the large neon sign block the road, stalling traffic for those faint of heart. I don’t know how such a business can still prosper; how much neon remains in this modern city? But the theater shells out for this expense every time so that by nightfall, the beautiful marquee shines again, and the red neon glow permeates every crevice of the quiet street.