Shout: The True Story of a Survivor Who Refused to be Silenced

by Laurie Halse Anderson

He didn’t ever hit her again, but she lived in the fear that he would, which had everything to do with her habits of silence.

I learned then that words had such power some must never be spoken and was thus robbed of both tongue and the truth.

I unscrewed the top of my head and rinsed out my brainpan with salt water from the North Sea

the old woman who wanders in the woods of my mind who knits in the rocking chair of my subconscious

Censorship is the child of fear the father of ignorance and the desperate weapon of fascists everywhere.

Me to be stronger, you to stand taller, we to shout louder than they thought we could

Dad-men, madmen, fathers of daughters unpowered by your brothers of the hunt your bull and guilt, creeping filth like a five-o’clock shadow you’re afraid.

So afraid, manly men, you’re unmade by the mirror, horrified cuz no matter how hard you try, how loud the cheers amplified by a surround-sound system of institutional lies you can still hear us.