The heading of the page says “Journal of Insanity” and has page number 270 and the month October. Below that it says “From that time forth, all communication between them ceased, her love was turned to hate, and she determined to have revenge.” It then shows the formula “Revenge = volts x amperes / gender. Below that are 1950s style drawings of a woman in an A-line dress curling her hair, and a man wearing a tie using a soldering iron. The caption says “Fig. 178. The electric curling iron and the electric soldering iron depend on the gender of the person using it.” Below that are two electrical diagrams, and the top one has “Input: sensorial images” and “Output: perceptions of motion” pointing to different parts of the diagram. The plug end of the diagram says “To the body.” The caption of the electrical diagrams says “Fig. 179: Synapses at the moment of realization gender is a social construct.”

Ellen Kombiyil (she/her) is a visual artist and author of two books and two chapbooks, most recently The American Journal of Insanity’s Diagnostic on the Plumbing & Wiring of Females (Visual Poetry Series Award, Anhinga 2026), and Love as Invasive Species (Cornerstone 2024). She is a 2022 and 2025 recipient of a BRIO Award from the Bronx Council on the Arts, a 2025 winner of the Geri Digiorno Multi-Genre Prize, and 2025 winner of the Tupelo Quarterly Prize for Cross-Disciplinary Writing. Her work has appeared in The Adroit Journal, DIAGRAM, Sixth Finch, and Ploughshares. She is an adjunct assistant professor at Hunter College in New York City. Find out more at ellenkombiyil.com. (Photo credit: Nandu Kombiyil)