Victoria

“she says to me:
'if you want to hurt a man, you don't kill
the man. you kill what he loves.'
i nod.
and then i ask her: 'so how do you hurt a woman?'
she answers:
'my child, a woman is hurting from the moment of birth.”
― Salma Deera, Letters From Medea

“And in the absence of facts, myth rushes in, the kudzu of history.”
― Stacy Schiff, Cleopatra: A Life

“the centre of every poem is this:
The centre of every poem is this:
I have loved you. I have had to deal with that.

— Salma Deera, Letters from Medea (2015)”
― Salma Deera, Letters From Medea

“listen girl,’ Medea says, ‘you are
not the first person in the world to
suffer from a broken heart.
but i will treat you like you are.
listen girl. he is not calling out your name.
your name to him is nothing.
it might have been before.
once, your name might have been
the only word he knew when he
was blind sad or bursting with sun.
those days are over.
your name can only exist in your own mouth now.
say it over and over. say it until it doesn’t sound
like a name, but just a sound.
the promises he made you are just sounds now too. remember that.
your hands are what will hold you together now.
and you want to be mad? be mad.
here is a plate. throw it through his window,
listen to the crack. the shatter. laugh into the night.
call yourself the sun. see, you will rise.
and are you less of a woman for this? no
what is woman?
woman is this–enduring.
listen girl, you will get over this– you will.
but what fool said you had to do it silently?
here is a tip – scream”
― Salma Deera, Letters From Medea