Anzaldua mentions multiple times throughout this book that Chicana's may be strong but their skin is not impenetrable. Themes of power and strength are seen frequently in feminist writings, and there is this push to have thick skin and not show emotion. But that is often an illusion, no one is impervious to constant critique. It is exhausting to have to defend your identity and to never have it fully accepted. In these two poems Anzaldua explores pain and healing. In Healing Wounds she speaks to the fact that wounds never really go away once inflicted. They stay fresh, bleeding as a permanent reminder of damage they wished to inflict. But there can be growth, and Anzaldua ends in a reminder that we must feel these lows in order to experience the highs. Her sorrow is further explored in Like a Spider in her Web. This poem is almost a response to the first. It addresses the want to shut away from the real world as a response to those wounds, and create a new one to live in, one that is less cruel. She ends the poem with, "Sueno another world, While el otro mundo dreams of me (pg. 276)." These final lines give hope of another world that can be created.
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