On the Savage Side

by Tiffany McDaniel

All the roads here are not graveled in rock, girls, but with the woman’s scars, because only a woman’s scars are strong enough to bear something driving over them, again and again.”

“A witch is not a pointy hat or a broom or warts. A witch is merely a woman who is punished for being wiser than a man. That’s why they burned her. They tried to burn away her power because a woman who says more than she’s supposed to say, and does more than she’s supposed to do, is a woman they’ll try to silence and destroy. But there are some things that not even fire can destroy. One of those things is the strength of a woman. Don’t you want to be a woman like that? A woman with power?”

A woman who is hard to tame is a woman who is easy to blame. —Daffodil Poet

“What is a dream,” I said, “but something the women before us have made?”