The river does not ask how you fell in only takes you, cold and certain, pulling at your lungs like a quiet demand. Branches lean in, witnesses with trembling hands, while the current wraps your ribs in a tightening hush a language of weight, of breath stolen before it forms. You learn the sound of silence pressed beneath the surface, how panic blooms like thunder with nowhere to go. You kick, you claw, but the water is patient, and it knows how to hold. There, in the dim green blur, you meet the heaviness not just of water, but of everything you tried not to carry. And still something in you refuses to dissolve. A fracture of light, a memory of air, a stubborn, flickering yes you rise. You break through not into peace, but into ache lungs burning, body shaking, the world louder than you remember. Because survival is not gentle. It is the gasp, the trembling, the fight to stay when leaving would be easier. And yet you stay. You learn the rhythm again: in, out not just breath, but choice. You become river-shaped strong where it matters, soft where it heals, carving kindness from stone. And though the current still moves, though the depths still call, you stand in the shallows with something unbroken a quiet knowing that even forced under, even undone, even lost in the weight we rise above it all.
to where i began no foundation to stand on, always feel like the sand beneath my feet is going to give out; will i be falling through stars until i land in the right universe? i can't shake the feeling that this is the wrong one, no one seems to understand me here; and no one has ever loved me the way i needed to be loved— no one seems capable of appreciating me and all of my magic, perhaps i just need to let the sand be washed away; maybe the ocean can take me back to where i began and i can find my home and these restless bones of mine can find rest. -linda m. crate
We will be releasing a Best of Anthology January 3rd 2025.
Though we usually do a cover reveal, this one is different. This is the best of the past four years of our Newsletter content.
We send the Newsletter out every month on the first. It has Art, poetry, and stories. It also features books that we have published and occasionally has upcoming news listed.
If you want to receive the newsletter sign up here.
If you want to submit your art, poetry, or stories – or would like to have us host an advertisement for you send us an email with the subject Fae Speaks.
This is the first volume of what we are hoping to have many more. Keep your eyes here for more information on the release.
