I’ll Just Sit Here Quietly, She Said
She doesn’t want to bother anyone with her existence
That’s what her parents tell her to do. Wait your turn. Be polite. Little girls don’t shout, they sit quietly.
So she sits quietly whilst her parents give her brothers more time than her. They get math club and after-school water polo, she gets dolls and an Easy Bake oven. She sits quietly whilst her parents dissect her brothers’ achievements over the dinner table.
Their glories, their medals, their trophies.
I’ll just sit here quietly she said whilst she internalises diet culture. She knows the less she eats, the more she’ll be desired. The more seriously she’ll be taken.
And the less space she will take up in the world.
I’ll just sit here quietly, she said whilst her father’s friend — the one who insists on calling him uncle — gropes her.
It will be the first — but not last — time this happens to her.
She knows no one will believe her if she says anything. She knows they will think it's her fault for wearing that short skirt, that cleavage-revealing shirt.
I’ll just sit here quietly, she said when a man approaches her at a bar. She doesn’t want to cause a scene, so she politely laughs at his…
