Conversations in the Kitchen

Written by a younger me

Art by Edgar Señoron II

I never thought I’d ever turn 17.

My mother is the person who has known me the longest. She watched me grow up and tried to keep watching, even when we stopped living under the same roof.

I do not know who knows me most, but my mother will assure you that she’s the one who does; she had known me before all 17 years of my life happened after all.

My mother is the one I have known the longest, and I have learned most that I know from her.

She taught me to sit primly and keep my legs shut to make space for everyone else. She taught me to keep my head down, and not to look people in the eyes because they’ll think it was either a challenge or an invitation. She taught me to keep my body covered, because what is skin if not temptation? What is a body if not something to be ashamed of?

I learned how to make tea from her. I learned to turn yarn into art from her. We put our hair up in the same way. We smile with the same hesitance. When I sing, my grandmother tells me that I sound like my mother.

The resemblance does not end there.

I put a blade on my wrist and in the aftermath, my mother made me a cup of jasmine tea with more honey than usual and told me about the time she did the same.

So, I never thought I’d turn 17, yet somehow I am turning 18 soon. It feels like the countdown to the detonation of a bomb.

My mother tells me not to go drinking with men, to cover my cup and never put it down and when I tell her that I do not drink anymore, she looks at me knowingly and goes back to cleaning the kitchen.

I am turning 18 soon.

My mother reminds me to lock the doors when they drop me off and tells me to call her if anyone tries to come in. She eyes the group of men drinking in the streets and asks if I want to stay at their house for the night.

I am turning 18 soon.

My mother tells me to never trust a man; they are hungry, hungry things and they will try to take a bite of you no matter how much you say no.

I am turning 18 soon.

I still haven't told my mother about that one time and how I sometimes feel unsafe at school.

I am turning 18 soon.

My mother looked hurt when I brushed away her hand; she still does not know that there are days when I refuse to be touched because of that one time and that second time and what could have been the third time if I wasn't careful.

I am turning 18 soon and I keep count of the days, fearing for when it will be morally and legally okay for others to look at my body and want it.

My mother and I talked in the kitchen in the dead of night. There are two cups of jasmine tea on the table, both with the same amount of milk and honey.

She tells me in a quiet, broken voice, “You are too young to be a woman.”

And I think that, maybe, I am just too young to be the type of woman that my mother is, and that I will always be too young.

My mother is quiet. She has learned to keep the hurt inside, only to turn it into a lesson for me and my sisters, taught in the kitchen when all the men in the house sleep. She has cautioned us from doing things I know all of my male relatives do without batting an eye.

My mother has taught me subservience, wrapped all she knew femininity to be and handed it to me as an heirloom. Her teachings are one I have taken to heart; it is a lesson I am now trying to unlearn.

I am my mother’s daughter through and through, and I am reminded every time we walk side by side and a stranger whistles to catch our attention, eyes me hungrily and tells me that I look like my mother. She steps in front of me and chokes out gratitude for the “compliment.” I find myself wishing she would tell them to leave us alone.

I find myself wishing that I knew how to tell them to leave me alone, alas, this is not something my mother has taught me to do.

I do not understand how they find my body desirable when all I see in the mirror is a container of rage - I am angry that my womanhood is so gentle when there are wolves constantly hunting me down.

I am angry that my mother taught me to keep the anger inside and turn it towards myself for not taking enough precautions. I am angry that I cannot show my rage without trying to make it look pretty, make it something easy to stomach.

I am angry and I am learning to say, “NO!”

I am learning to fight back.

It is 3 AM and I am in the kitchen with a woman.

I make two cups of jasmine tea, one milky white and one unsweetened. I take a sip. I let the leaves steep in the water for too long; the tea has gone bitter.

I look at the one who sits across from me; I examine the bags under her eyes, her shoulders hunched inwards. I sit straight. I tell her that I’ll be okay.

I have been a woman long before I turned 17.

I will be turning 18 soon.