In “A Battered Women Stands at Her Bathroom Mirror,” Beth Walker writes about fear at the hands of a loved one, how the narrator’s “heart is full of dust,/a room stifled for years.”
But slowly, with their soaring and unimaginably brilliant voices, the authors and artists in this issue are clearing the dust from their hearts. They are un-stifling, un-fearing, un-burdening, un-chaining themselves from violence and loss.
“How I fought,” Amy Blythe writes. “How I tried and tried.” Everyone in this issue writhes to take back what was ripped from them, a kind of collective standing. A screaming after years of silence. In “Stone Tongues,” Melanie Bui Larsen writes about being the victim of racialized catcalling with a group of friends, how their lungs rose together in unison to yell back. “There’s a soft roaring in my ears, and I can make out the drumbeat of my friends’ more articulate ripostes dovetailing with my own,” Melanie remembers.
In this issue, we have decided, together, that we will no longer take it lying down. There is healing in the letting go of our demure selves, our thundering scaredness. We have envisioned our own battle cries.
The words you see in these pages, the art you see in these pages, was created by visionaries.
In “Girl,” Zahrah Koch declares, “You are a storm, howling winds and electric clouds...they will sense your danger.”
They will sense all of our danger.
Welcome to Issue Five.
With gratitude,
Meggie Royer
Founder & Editor-in-Chief
Meggie Royer is a writer and photographer from the Midwest who is currently working in the domestic violence field in Minnesota. Her poems have previously appeared in Words Dance Magazine, Winter Tangerine Review, The Harpoon Review, and more. Many of her poems promote female empowerment through body positivity, courage, healing from assault, and familial love passed down through generations of women. In March 2013 she won a National Gold Medal for her poetry collection and a National Silver Medal for her writing portfolio in the 2013 National Scholastic Art & Writing Awards. Her work can be found at writingsforwinter.tumblr.com.