When I was a kid, we girls were as strong as the boys. Not all of us, but some of us. And I—very tall for my age even then, nearly all my weight held in muscle and bone, with uncommon upper-body strength—was at least as strong as any little boy I encountered at summer camp or on the playground.

When I was six or seven, I got in a fight with a boy my age next to the monkey bars. He said he'd punch me in the throat if I didn't shut up. I grinned like a wild thing, baring my crooked, pre-braces teeth, and dared him to. No throats were punched, but faces were: I spat blood in his face, he lost a tooth, and I held my own before the adults dragged us apart. They didn't rescue me; they didn't need to.

And then the rush of adolescence: unstoppable as the turning of leaves. I did not dislike the changes it brought—I rejoiced in buying makeup, in finally filling out bras—and all thoughts of strength were swiftly assigned to the background. Now that we were both fourteen, the boy I'd tussled with on the playground was much stronger than I, could have knocked me down with a single punch, but I wasn't thinking of these things anymore. My mind was not on playground brawls but on crushes, letters, songs of longing. Dreaming, dreaming, dreaming about love.

I did not think again of physical fighting until that love actually materialized.

When I was nineteen, a man I was dating said he'd hit me in the face if I didn't stop crying.

This time I didn't grin. I did bare my teeth, grimacing in an instinctive display of submission, tail tucked so far between my legs it was almost in my mouth. My sweat giving off the primal stink of adrenalized fear.

Bitch, he called me. He spat the knife of its syllable like I once spat out blood on the playground. I watched his body turn to me in the near-darkness of the room. The light of streetlamps was coming in sullen through the window, the scent of my favorite lamb curry still hanging in the air. There was not a single vulnerable spot on his body: he was all metal, all iron, dense as the earth's core.

And my own muscles turning to paper, my bones shivering to spun glass.

Something strange has been happening in my dreams lately: I get in fights in them. Always with girls. These opponents are voiceless, faceless; they fold before me. I land punches with ease, my fists made of rock and steel, unbreakable. I grin my victory, my violence. My bloodlust shocks me when I wake, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy these dreams.

But I only ever fight girls. Even my subconscious knows that if I were to fight a man, I'd shatter my metacarpals against his cranium. His teeth would slice right through my skin.

Nineteen in the grimy light of a nameless city, shivering beneath my boyfriend's iron glare, I try with all my might to stop crying. I clench my teeth against the sobs, try to suck the tears back into my eyes. My gaze swings back and forth, back and forth, as I measure and re-measure the distance to the door.

.