Crack the Spine - Issue 166

I was Philomela crying tears of coloured thread, choking on it, drowning in it.

I was Philomela trapped and desperate, reaching out for my sister. We need our sisters, of body and of blood, the sisters to our souls.

We need our sisters to give us back our words, to be our tongues and hands.

We need our sisters, our unwavering loves, our forests to stand against the cruel axes of fathers, of lovers, of sons. We need our fellow birds to leave this world that was born for us, of us, and taken from us. Bird-women, let us climb into the sky and find strength in the slipstreams of each others wings. Let us reclaim the world by first taking the sky.