I have been writing about my grandfather’s murder and male privilege and having male privilege in a female body and also fearing men. Hovering at the edge of my consciousness is something, something I can’t quite grasp. Phrases like “women experience daily living like a war zone” and “I remember the first time I felt a penis used like a weapon” appear in these pages and elsewhere. Yet I inhabit a female body. Male privilege is both mine and not mine. Has a man lost his privilege when he is stalked, attacked and raped by another man? Does he ever lose it in relation to a woman?

Is the ineffability I now experience a fault of my mine as a writer or is it simply that I have reached the edges of how I can conceptualize myself as a man? Will I ever find the words to describe my apprehensions of my time in this world?