The Fire in My Veins
You didn’t expect this. In fact, you didn’t even realize it was there. A silent volcano ready to erupt. The pressure of the ever changing platelets that moved with the stealth of an assassin. The ashes that bore me. That made me into who I am now as embers catching flame and lighting back to life. Silent is what you thought I was. Silent is what you expected me to be. Silent was never my voice. From my mouth molten rocks spew out in a frenzy of syllables and truths that even I wasn’t sure would ever break surface. The damage that the fire did was something I could never take back, but I didn’t want them back. I wanted the land around me to burn. I wanted to watch it all burn until all that remained was charred skeletons of the oasis you thought you created for me. I was becoming more than a man. I was becoming legendary. I was becoming iconic. I was becoming the phoenix I said I would. Stay steady and hold fast, the fire under the mountain is churning and boiling. It is yearning to break free. Eager to cast a smog of toxic fumes into the atmosphere. Thunder will roll and the earth with shake under the enormity of my will. You thought I should stay silent. You thought I should remember who I was speaking too…what you didn’t realize was that a blaze this strong, the primordial fire deep within me, could not be stopped. There was not enough water to put it out. THE FIRE IN MY VEINS would not allow it.
Little by little, day by day, I waited. I grabbed the patience within me and held it tight. My words were bearing their teeth. They were surfacing from the deepest recesses of my very being. I could feel them bubbling free. My lips burned from the lava oozing from between them. I wanted to swallow them back. I wanted to hold it in a little longer, but the pressure building inside me was too much. It was not enough for me to quell the beast that was growing under my skin. The burning feathers of hellfire that was protruding from by back, and arms, and legs, and face. They could not be hidden anymore. They were breaking skin and igniting the air around me. So long I had waited for this moment. So long I had waited to break free of the shell I once was. So long I desired to find my own voice again; I did not expect there to be brimstone where my teeth once stood. I did not realized that my tongue would be forked. I realized then that I wasn’t becoming a phoenix, I was becoming a dragon. I looked for peace and instead I found violence. The blazing serpent within me was wiggling its way out. I would have loved to become the majestic bird of fire. To show grace where there was hurt and pain, but the hurt and pain morphed me. I realized then, it was not feathers spiking out of my skin, but scales. Bright fire engulfed scales. The red-orange abominations that were coming from me was the result and the product of the pain, neglect, and shame I went through. It looks as if I will not become what I had hoped, I would become something of nightmares. I longed for revenge. I longed for hurt. Not for myself, but for those that hurt me. Those that let me alone and suffer in my own agony. I would bring their homes to the ground with just a flick of my tongue. Embers would set fire to the wood and burn it away from the bricks. I was becoming a spirit of vengeance and not one of peace.
The lighted flames seared my veins. As it passed through I asked myself what would it do to serve as a dragon…to serve as a bringer of destruction? I had been reduced to ashes to come back as a hateful spirit with malicious intent seemed an injustice to myself. It would not only harm my own person but it would harm everyone, even the ones I loved. I had focused so much on the lack of emotion and empathy I was getting. The neglect from the very people I chose to love that I was allowing it to change me. To turn me into something that I wasn’t. I knew that being reborn into this new self, this new body that was once plagued with disease would be different. I knew that I would not be the same man I once stared at in front of the mirror. I was going to be ethereal and powerful.
My haunting memories of pain from those that pushed me aside. That didn’t care. Who spoke words of remorse but who harbored insensitivity sped through my mind. The gray matter in my skull was lit with blue and black flames. Fire that was hotter than the fire which glowed red and orange. I was actually willing to hurt them. I was willing to watch them squirm and feel nothing. Darkness you see, doesn’t just come in as thoughts of self-harm, it can also come in the form of hurting others. Rather I wouldn’t physically harm them, but emotionally and mentally. I had it all planned out. I knew how I was going to burn the skin off their bones. I knew how I was going to sear them and brand them with the memory of the desolation that I would leave behind.
That’s what anger does though. Anger. Hatred. Resentment. It causes those thoughts to surface. Those feelings to burn and engulf the body, spirit, and mind. Though I still feel there should be justice done to those who left me to the dark, it is not a justice that I can deliver. It is not one that I will take. The justice that they deserve is knowing that through it all, I was alone and they did nothing. They did nothing to cool the fires in me because they felt that I needed that fire to harness the strength to pull through. I just needed them. I needed someone to just hold me. I needed someone to tell me that it was going to be okay. I needed someone to stand by me and not allow me to work through the pain and the hurt and the loneliness alone.
It’s in those thoughts and those feelings that the blazing hatred and anger and resentment inside of me was slowly going out. I feel peace channeling though me. I feel security channeling though me. It was in those fires, those burning fires of pain that I was reborn. I came out crisp and blackened from the licking flames on my skin…but the fire returned life back into me. THE FIRE IN MY VEINS in now not one of malicious emotion, but one of strength and power. Not the power over others, but the power within myself. Knowing that I was able to withstand the hardest time in my life ALONE. Though I can give credit to the ones that reached out their hand to try and help me from the flames, I knew that they were not equipped to join in the hellfire with me. I was the only one who could do this. It was my journey to make and mine to take.
This reality. This mindset. This choice.
Instead of following the fire within me, I look to the stars for guidance. I listen for their hums and their whistles to point me in the direction I need to follow. Though that direction may not be suitable for everyone. The direction that I choose is one of rebirth. It is of one who emerged from the ashes and flames; becoming not a dragon, but a phoenix. I said I would rise and so I did. Now, I need to spread my new wings and fly. The blaze will follow me, but I control my own destiny.
“Yes, you will rise from the ashes but the burning comes first. For this part, darling, you must be brave” -Kalen Dion
“Art done by Wonder”
