After four daughters and a new wife, my father says to me one afternoon, “I wish you were born a boy.” I don’t show emotions. I keep the knot on my throat and the skin pulsing beneath my eyes under control. I don’t know how to act. My head has repeated some variation of those words before he said them, since I was born. The tragedy of us first-born girls. My father notices my silence and shoots another quick, but meaningless comment. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that, I didn’t mean it.” He had another girl after that.
Camila A. (they/she) is a writer at night and an animation student by day. They're from Chile. X: @camwaswriting