{a play in three acts}
act i
{the resurrection}
sometimes
(all the time),
i think i was
a witch
in a past life.
(joan of arc,
maybe.
or morgan le fay.
or one of
the witches
from salem.)
i said that
to my mother once
when i was little—
i marched right up to her
and whispered it
like a prophecy.
she barely looked up
from her ironing
to acknowledge me.
so, naturally,
i howled
like a heathen
to try and get
her attention—
i have always had
what my mother
would call
a performative streak—
but she merely shooed
me off,
told me i was
being a bother,
that witches aren’t real.
i didn’t have the words
to explain to her,
then,
this visceral knowing
that there is magic
stitched into my spine
the same way my soul is.
this intrinsic feeling
that i am a stranger in this world,
because i am paying for some
ancestral failing
down my bloodline.
because to be a witch
is to have the devil in you—
to be a witch
is to be an enemy of the state—
and that is to say
that being witch
is almost as unforgivable
as being woman.
see,
the two go hand in hand.
why do you think
that men always complain
about witch hunts,
but women are the only ones
to ever be hunted?
i know it sounds crazy,
but i think i’ve come
to the realisation
that i am the descendant
of all the witches
they couldn’t burn.
(and the ones they did.)
i see evidence of it
etched into
the terrain
of my body.
but perhaps
this is only something
i have noticed.
what you see:
a girl with
with blue eyes
red hair
pale skin
lovely bones
what i see:
blue eyes:
a timeworn antique,
hair:
an heirloom my grandmother left for me in her will,
skin:
pale like the fairy pools in the isle of sky,
bones:
hidden. kept a secret like the silencing of a voice.
these features are all borrowed
from the grave,
you know;
worn out
and collapsed
from watching century
after century
slowly brag by.
i think i have always known
that each piece of me
once belonged
to other witches of women
before they turned to dust—
(remember that you
are born from dust,
and to dust
you shall return–)
i think they longed
to visibly mark me as theirs’;
to pass on the curse
of the red-headed woman.
they are haunting me, now—
they walk around this
hallowed house at night,
harmonising their shrill
whispers
into a symphony
of perished women
until this
is the only thing i can hear.
do you really think
i haven’t noticed
how the only lyrics
are their own names?
it always starts
the same;
alice
alice
alice
then
joan
joan
joan
i always wonder
if they chant
their names like a hallelujah
because they know
they have been forgotten,
and they fear they
will forget themselves—
isabell
alice
alice
janet
geillis
joan
i guess this is what happens
when everything else
has been taken from you—
isabell
alice
janet
geillis
geillis
joan—
this cacophony
only stops
when the dawn comes—
after all,
sunlight only ever burns you.
perhaps this is why
i have stopped sleeping.
act ii
{the rising}
an observation:
every woman
to ever live
has known or will come
to know
what it feels like
to be hunted
by match-boys
and huntsmen alike.
whiskey-dipped catcalls
hungry stares
being followed home
by a clothes-hanger stranger
with smoke on his breath
fear
fear of filing the restraining order
because i don’t want to see him
sitting smug in that court
fear of what he will do to me
if he finds me
fear that when he finds me
he will want
what he feels i owe him
house key daggers at the ready
you can never be too careful these days—
doesn’t this all sound familiar?
i read once
that men are afraid
women will laugh at them
but women are afraid that men
will kill them—
this is the anatomy
of an institutionalised oppression—
one which has formed
and strengthened
since before the times
of adam and eve.
is this the backhand of god?
the huntsmen have learned
that fear makes one small—
and when one is small,
they are
easily able
to be controlled.
this is why our husbands
force-fed fear down
our pocket-sized throats
in the centuries leading up
to this one,
burned it
into our shoulders
with hot red branding irons
lashed it into us
with righteous fists
and wooden crucifixes
held us down
and roughly implanted it
into us
knowing that we had
no means to stop them.
i have often found myself thinking:
wow.
we really must have something
for them to be afraid of
if they will go to all these lengths
to beat it out of us.
us, red-haired,
widow’s peaked,
intelligent,
spellbinding,
magic,
beguiling,
wild,
witches of women.
us,
who cannot be tamed
or broken in
like a new pair
of leather boots.
they do not see the beauty
of our foreignness—
they cower when we howl
at the statuesque moon
like the wolves we are,
because they do not understand
that we are carved from it,
that can we can feel it
pulling our tides,
that it is
a monument erected
in our honour—
our sisterhood
makes them nervous—
the way that we have learned
to recognise the smell of blood
because we have bled
more than any man—
and together, nonetheless.
they have not learned
how our bodies work,
they cannot comprehend
the magic of our composition.
can you really blame them?
we are a wonder far too
complex and divine for them
to master.
act iii
{the requiem}
at the end of november,
i will be returning
to the land of my ancestors—
the place where they burnt
all the women
they could not silence,
and cleansed the earth
of their ashes
with fire,
as if they were the ones
who had made it dirty.
i will be leaving behind
everything i have ever known
in this place i have never belonged,
but i will miss it nonetheless.
i feel like i am going home.
home to the rolling green hills
and to the crisp, grey rain
and to the cobbled streets
with moss growing in between
the cracks of stone.
i am being pulled there
by some strange force
of nature, i know—
it only makes sense,
i suppose;
i have always had
the most uncanny instinct
for my own calling.
that would be the witch in me,
you could say.
you know,
my sister-witches
still whisper to me
at night,
and i,
the resurrectionist,
with bleeding ears
am eager to listen—
this is the least i can do
because i am them.
i am all of them.
i have been persecuted
for being a witch
in every century;
joan of arc,
found guilty of witchcraft.
burned at the stake, may 30, 1431.
walpurga hausmannin,
tortured for her confession.
dismembered while still alive,
then burned at the stake, september 2, 1587.
alice grey,
accused of murder by means of witchcraft, 1612.
tortured for her confession.
for reasons unknown,
she was found not guilty.
no one knows
what happened to her
after the trial.
one can only imagine.
katherine hewitt
bridget bishop
janet horne
agnes waterhouse
isabell rigby
geillis duncan
i see you;
i will remember you—
you deserve to be listened to,
to have your names
written across the earth
with scorch marks
to seize back your voices
and your bodies.
i want you to know
that someone sees you
as more than just
firewood;
i am not firewood,
though it only
took one look at me
to know i’d be
flammable.
you know,
i get the feeling that some men
have never fully forgiven us
for reclaiming our bodies,
but long gone
are the times
of crooked kings
and match-boys
and women’s opinions
being a fire hazard
and witch hunts
and waking up
to fingerprint-bruises
on the insides
of our thighs
and praying
it was god
who left them there.
a woman’s power
should not threaten
your masculinity.
learn.
learn to love us
without swallowing us
learn to hold us
without owning us
learn that if you made yourselves the sun
because you didn’t think we were bright enough,
we made ourselves the moon
because we knew we were woman enough;
do not burn us—
shine with us.
in november,
i will be returning
to the place
of my ancestors.
the place where
they burned
all the women
they felt threatened by.
i have been burned
in so many past lives
that it is only natural
for the fire to live inside me now.
never forget
you can’t make fire
feel afraid.
because witch,
i am.
woman,
too.
and i could not be more proud.
