Burn It All Down & Rise

The powerful magic of an awakening woman.

Photo by Joshua Newton on Unsplash

I am aflame. No one set the fire. This is self-immolation.

I don’t think I knew what I was signing on for when this all started.

But there’s no stopping the fires of transformation, once they’ve begun lapping at your skin.

I climbed up here on this pyre. Said I wanted to be awake. Declared the intention to set free all the structures that tie me down. Hold me back. Stop me from becoming.

I think I had very romantic notions of what that would look like. Imagined I could rise without the burning. Envisioned grace descending in a peaceful, quiet hush.

I forgot how this whole phoenix business works.

Now I am here. Screaming in the heat. Clawing at my own skin. Desperate to get out.

You cannot un-know these kinds of things. There is no reverse apple. Once Truth-with-a-capital-T is tasted, it stains your lips, tongue, teeth for life.

Still, I resist.