Morgan Lloyd Malcolm

“Emilia 3: Was I a trawl of fish or stack of hay? Was I meat? What else was there for me now? His hook in me digs deeper, burrows further into my flesh so that it can assert it's ownership over my body. He has covered all inches of me. While he discusses what to do with my future. His seed is busy making home of my now. What were these feelings growing in me? The flutterings of a tiny creature making himself known or was it something else? It was a strange feeling indeed. A growing sense of unease.

Emilia 2: A flickering flame. Heat.

Emilia 3: I felt heat. Of something starting. Something that has lain quiet and still for some time. Held down. Buried. And this unspeakable action by my lord has awakended it somehow. I knew that I would marry that man but no longer for my love.

Emilia 2: I did it for my child.

Emilia 3: For me? I would begin to fan this flame so as to see how bright it would burn.”
― Morgan Lloyd Malcolm, Emilia

“What can I say to you? Now. What. Can I. I want to tell you about anger. Because it is not just something that passed through like a storm. It is something that forms the core of me. Like the earth has the heat of its origins deep in it's centre I do too. I have been told that my anger is not to be seen on my outside. That it is not seemly. It doesn't help. I have been told, even by other women, that it detracts from what I have tried to say. I have been told that it's distracting people from moving forward as they are too consumed by the guilt I am giving them. And that my hatred of the men whose very ills fuel this anger, detracts from my arguments. But you say we hate men as if we silence them, as if we beat and abuse them, rape them, as if we shame them from their desires, as if we restrict them from any kind of independence and agency. As if we hang them and drown them and stone them and burn them. I am 76 years old and I hold in me a muscle memory of every woman who came before me and I will send more for those that will come after. For Eve. For every Eve. I don't know if you can feel it. Do you? Do you feel it? Inside of you. You don't need to be a woman to know what is coming. Because why have our stories been ignored? For so long? Ask yourself why. Listen to us. Listen to every woman who came before you. Listen to every woman with you now. And listen when I say to you to take the fire as your own. That anger that you feel it is yours and you can use it. We want you to. We need you to. Look how far we've come already. Don't stop now. The house that has been built around you is not made of stone. The stakes we have been tied to will not survive if our flames burn bright. And if they try to burn you, may your fire be stronger than theirs so you can burn the whole fucking house down.”
― Morgan Lloyd Malcolm, Emilia