editor’s note
A paper cut takes three days to heal. Three days for four steps.
One. Hemostasis. You suck your index finger until the bleeding stops. Blood cells hold hands and hug. They squeeze together so tight they form a barrier of red, protecting your insides like mother protects child.
Two. Inflammation. The wound is closed. Hurts still. Your finger throbs so you shake it and shake it. You want the pain gone now, but healing doesn’t work that way.
Three. Rebuild. No pieces to pick up. Instead, your body creates new ones. They’re made of collagen and extracellular matrix — human scaffolding. Others cannot notice that your skin once bled, but you see it, feel it still.
Four. Strengthen. Your tissue is newer, stronger. On the outside you’re good-as-new. No more bandaids, no more finger-sucking, no more stinging pain. You’ve healed, but you’ll never be the same.
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Healing is a beautiful, bloody process. In order to heal, one must be broken. We explored that brokenness, its blood and color-changing bruises within our inaugural issue. We came face-to-face with our pain and kissed those aching hearts. But what comes after? After we ache and bleed, we wrap our wounds in gauze. Underneath those bloody bandages, we scab over and become new. We heal. We heal with prayers from Taiwo Hassan’s “amen,” in beds of roses and lilies from Jaachi Anyatonwu’s “FOR BOYS WHO ARE ADAMS OF PAIN,” and through meditation by the Mediterranean sea in Flourish Joshua’s “I meditate.” And when we heal, we close our eyes and tilt our heads to the sky, as in Damara Woodring’s “Oil and Water.”
Issue II is the creative embodiment of healing in different afro-headed bodies, different time zones, and different wounds. Each piece reflects different stages of healing. Some struggle to stop the bleeding, some cry of throbbing and tears, some carry hammers and nails, and some reveal twisted, browned scars. Issue II is beautiful, not because of its lovely language or vivid artwork, but because it’s startingly visceral. It reaches past paper cuts and wraps around your heart with poetry-colored gauze.
As the sun sets on 2021 and rises on 2022, I hope healing finds you. In the midst of changing weather, scary virus variants, and life and death, I hope healing finds you. Allow this issue’s prose, poetry, and art, even temporarily, to wrap your wounds. Most wounds cannot heal in three days. Still, no matter how deep you’ve been cut, you will scab over and become new.
With joy,
Chinonye Omeirondi