A non-exhaustive list of things a woman does when she’s afraid

A non-exhaustive list of things a woman does when she’s afraid

Valerie

Sep 28, 2026

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Regards her appearance as tiresome but beguiling on demand

Pushes her food around the plate with a knife and fork. A hockey faceoff

Says it didn’t matter

Suggests love is temporary, but rejecting own deservingness is forever

Develops a model of discernment that is neither provoking nor truthful, bland to taste

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Lets unfriendly entities into her home and on her cream couch in search of divination

Lets the entities stay

Owns the void

Rejects toothache, improper suitors, and her innate instincts to take care of another

Hoards airline miles and condescending remarks from strangers

Doesn’t ask for anything and always signs off with kind regards

Makes an older woman proud with her food choices and snacking abstinence

Longs for temporality and purple shoes

Is always just a little too preventatively apologetic to be taken seriously by peers

Looks up plastic surgery clinics in her city, starting with “best”, erased, followed by “affordable”

Wishes karma was operated by a TV remote

Jana Sterbak - Remote Control II

Wonders if god started botox before 30

Carries Tylenol in her bag, wonders about the friend that moved away. Never takes it, never texts first

Thinks about Gloria Steinem’s and Annie Dillard’s passing within weeks of each other until it makes her cry

Unfairly assigns machine qualities to her animal body

Holds onto the seatbelt in the turbulent sky: hope and physics can change everything

Looks for signs of what she’s outgrown; gets scared thinking about it

Gets really into natural disasters and Nouvelle Vague directors

Summons inedible food in plastic containers with Face ID

Envies Japan for being loved and praised by white men all around the world

Hides usefulness, hides pride, hides indigestion

Sees symbolism where there is none; doesn’t see truth on the teleprompter

Goes thankful, goes astray

Takes out of her savings for purchases of divine intervention

Annegret Soltau, Selbst, 1975

Gets too used to her face to feel anything for herself

Thinks everyone else is too used to her face to feel anything for her

Does box breathing to expel indiscretion

Forgets her passport. Calls a guy. The guy isn’t helpful and doesn’t know where it is.

Why always the impulse to call a guy?

Goes through her tagged posts

Fantasizes about privacy and its dwindling affordability

Everyone is preemptively forgiven and so pretty. Same rules don’t apply to self

Invites herself to things. Feels embarrassed and imposed. Doesn’t go

Has vibrant, imaginative arguments with the bathroom mirror before cutting bangs

Understands what she’s looking for is not in the lover or in the fame or even in the free stuff in the PO box but somewhere at the bottom of a swimming pool, dormant and ready to be monetized

Seriously considers an unpaid editorial internship at her overripe age

Soaks her heart in saline and cheap targeted ads

Reads his mind

Says thank you and no worries and hums meditatively until she’s somewhat understood. May or may not happen.

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