“Sometimes people try to destroy you, precisely because they recognize your power — not because they don’t see it, but because they see it and they don’t want it to exist.”

—bell hooks

If you are reading this you are alive. Somewhere. Breathing. Existing. Resisting. Your very existence is resistance. Right now. Wherever you are. Take a moment and look at yourself from a bird’s eye view. Think about how far you have come to be where you are today. Think about all that you have witnessed in horror and in joy. Think about all that you have failed over and over again and triumphed through this roller coaster we call life. Now consider where you are today because of an ancestor before you. And before them. And before them. Across time and across borders we continue to exist. One generation at a time. One story at a time. What you are doing today is shaping your descendants’ lives and their stories. Your very existence is resistance. And that is the biggest threat of all. When your oppressors tried to detain you, when they tried to expel you, when they tried to enslave you, when they tried to rape you, when they tried to colonize you, when they tried to murder you. They are threatened by us because we still exist. And as long as you are breathing right now, you are resisting. To my people in Palestine, fighting for your livelihood and land. To my women, fighting for your bodily freedom. To my hijabi sisters, shielding your hijabs from white nationalist yanking fingers. To my college students standing for what’s right. To my Muslim, Arab, Mexican, Black, Brown, and Indigenous kin, your very existence is resistance. This issue is our collective resistance across borders, now and forever. From Detroit to Columbia University to Palestine to the U.S.-Mexico border, we resist so our humanity can survive. We create so we can exist forever through our stories. So take a moment and take a deep breath. Because you have made it so far. From your ancestors, to you, to your descendants. And until we are all free, across all borders, we will not stop using our voice, our words, our art, and our stories to resist. Until then, keep creating. Keep breathing. Keep existing. Keep resisting.

a writer’s woes:
i cannot simply write. i cannot sit in solitude and write. i cannot be in nature and write. i cannot write when you ask me to write. i wait for poems to come to me. i must live life. to write life. poems meet me through sisters & students, through dreams & nightmares, through joy & pain, through failures & achievements. the burden of a writer is to write one’s woes and to write the world’s woes. words are the world’s weight on writers’ shoulders. a writer’s pen is oft heavy with worry, with sorrow, with longing, with hope. when you ask me how do i write. i tell you i can’t. i don’t know how. but poems visit me sometimes and they write for me. they creep on my skin, seep through my pores, throb at my veins, take control of the pen. they come to tell me eloquent epics. sometimes tragic tales. stories to be read long after we’re gone. these poems will hold us. hold our memory. hold our time on this earth. for who will orate our stories if our own hand does not narrate them. for have you forgotten the pillage of your homeland. the erasure of your ancestors’ history. the burning of our lineage’s libraries. would we have known our people’s stories if it were not for our lyrical legacies, rhythmic records, and gripping griots. our words carry the world’s weight. our words are heavy with our people’s history. our words weep with worry to be long remembered. when they are embalmed in dust, peeking under rubble, hiding from their land’s rapists. our words seek to be saved. our words wail

remember us
                remember us
                                remember us
forevermore!

In solidarity,
Bayan Founas

Bayan Founas is an Algerian American writer from Michigan who works in education.

Part of our 2024 Fiction Issue.