Amanda Lovelace - the witch doesn’t burn in this one

the women are some kind of magic series: the princess saves herself in this one (#1) the witch doesnt burn in this one (#2) for the girl on fire. thank you for inspiring me to gently set the world alight. you may have a gown of flames, but those same flames run through my veins. & to all the princesses, to all the damsels, to all the queens. you have rescued yourselves so many times now & i am in awe of you. remember to practice self-care before, during, & after reading. contents warning I: this is not a fairy witch tale. there are no witches. there is no witch hunt. there are no match-boys. there are no burnings. there is no fiery revolution. this is simply a story where women fight against the manmade structure that has long overstayed its welcome. warning II: no mercy ahead. write your fears. thats what they told me. so i picked that pen up again & i traced my way over these openclosedopen wounds until the inky map led me right to the very ones who started it. then i took a deep breath & conjured up a storm all my own. tell me something, would you? havent you ever wished you could dance in the ashes of everyone who ever doubted your worth & scoffed at your words? (shhh, its okay. i wont tell.) pro p hecy I i will not survive this winter. the boys with fistfuls of matchsticks are poundpoundpounding at my cottage door. while witches may be flammable, the match-boys cannot take the heart shape my lovers lips take when she whispers my name through the dark. the match-boys cannot take the mother-to-daughter tales that will slide off the angry tongues of my descendants for centuries to come. the match-boys cannot take the wronged womans wrath of artemis, goddess of hunt(ing the ones who come for women like me with hate-filled eyes). i may not survive the match-boys, but my bitch-fire will survive them all. pro p hecy II what happens when you throw your match, but the pastor-preyed witch simply refuses to catch? what happens when you throw your stone, but the adultery-accused wife simply refuses to bleed? what happens when you throw your fist (again), but your truth-talking girlfriend simply refuses to bruise? over the span of centuries animals evolve to survive their surroundings, so what happens when women finally learn to throw back? (this.) (this.) (this.) (this.) & so the tale goes... I. the trial the boys who spend all their days finger-fiddling with matchsticks line us up & proceed to stick tiny yellow & black truth-telling flowers between our teeth. one by one, they ask us if we know what crime were guilty of. after a brief pause to gather our thoughts, we say, the only thing were guilty of is being women. this is simultaneously the right & wrong answer. to the match-boys, our
existence is the darkest form of magic, usually punishable by death. they dont even know whats coming. how cute. we shouldnt be afraid of them. no no no. they should be afraid of us . - the first lesson in fire. we give power to anything we fancy, but we may also take it away again. just. like. that. the choice is entirely ours & they just want to end us before we have the chance to end them. - the best kept secret. im afraid i must confess i inherited my mothers rage & the mother-rage that came before her & all the mother-rage that raced down every branch of our tangled up family tree. - nothing can extinguish me. to everyone who said my great-grandmother had a wee bit of witch in her: shes got nothing on me. - & ive only just begun. the ground it ignites wherever a womans foot comes down & if youre not careful, the very same thing could happen to you. - some destruction is beautiful. this is an overdue love letter to each & every woman who walked these fields before me & made the path soft enough for me to walk through to get to the side they could never reach. for that, i owe you so much. - but i owe some things to myself, too. there exists a fine line between being selfish & being selfless & most days i cant tell which side it is that im on. & most days? i dont care. - there are some things i just have to do for me. why yes, i am the girl with the arsonist heart all your fathers warned you about & once one tree catches, its not long before the whole forest lights up. - yet i never seem to care who gets hurt. gods, i hope i terrify you. keep an eye out for all those quietly reckless, knotty-haired girls. you know you cant hold back a wildfire, dont you? - trouble trouble. women: we can spin g o l d out of d i r t. - bewitching. women: we can magic f i r e out of a i r. - bewitching II. sometimes women bleed; sometimes we do not. we cannot be so easily divided up into boxes wrapped in pre-packaged pink lace & ribbons. - every woman is authentic. women are considered to be possessions before we are ever considered to be human beings, & if our doors & our windows are ever smashed in by wicked men, then we are deemed worthless foreclosed. never sold. so we move out of our neighborhoods & we make sister-homes out of each other. - we lock those doors & eat those keys. women learn to sense what who danger looks like just by catching another womans eye from across a crowded room. - survival. women pass down how-to guides on the ways to tell if our drinks are spiked & offer to guard the flimsy doors of bathroom stalls for each other. - survival II. the only time i know what being safe feels like is when im in a room overflowing with light & the laughter of women that fills the space floor-to-ceiling with lavender & a door with a lock no man can ever break. - safety has never been our privilege. we know how to keep the girls safe from the sharp talons of old, sleepy, bedroom-eyed dragons, & when we arent quick enough to act, we know just what we have to do: walk through the roaring blaze & swim across miles of moats & climb the glittering tower & make the beasts beg us for our mercy. - predators. we finally refused to be seen as only bodies crafted for the mens use&consumption, so we set the clouds ablaze to sway them, to show them how wonderfully we could coexist, but they chose to take it as a threat & they have never fully forgiven us for claiming the portion of the sky that was always rightfully ours. - when the glass sky is the limit. when our abilities became too much, they tried to shut us away in the dark without even a candle to guide us out. little did they know, our woman-rage-fire would light our path home just fine. - you are your own lighthouse. the man with the witch-killing look in his eyes drinks deeply from the chipped lilac teacup, his trembling hands making it clink against the saucer as he places them back together. my stomach churns in circles as the dark liquid dribbles down his chin in lines. he eagerly slides the cup & dish to me across the old, rickety table & i waste no time turning the cup over onto the dish to get rid of the excess. when i turn the cup right-side up, i spot the clusters of soggy brown & black leaves that litter the bottom in various shapes & sizes. i study it for a moment & immediately look away, nervously wringing my hands in my skirts. theres no question what that means. well? what does it say? he asks. i keep my eyes down. the leaves say youre going to... pay. p-pardon? he sputters, his eyes filling to the brim with terror. they say... youre all going to pay, i whisper. - the leaves never lie. to be a woman is to be warbound, k n o w i n g all the odds are stacked against you. - & never giving up in spite of it. red lipstick: an external sign of internal fire. - we tried to warn you. red lipstick: battle cry. battle cry. battle cry. - we tried to warn you II. they scratched it out of the history books, but on all the great innovations you will find scorch marks in the shape of a womans magnificent handprint. do not forget: we need to be the history books now. - women are libraries about to burst. women