in motion

if He is out there, He has seen fit to let us burn.

hey mom. I know this isn't what you meant I know it isn't but what you taught me what I grew up thinking I Knew I don't want you to know how much I struggled with it I am still so, so angry and hurt you're slowly trying to open a dialogue with me now, nearly five years after I left the nest. and I have to let you come to me. I have to. because I learned early that baring my own heart only leads to hurt and isolation that telling you what I want. what I would rather do or say what I believe is dismissed. you still don't fully accept who I am, I think from the hints and whispers I have allowed you to hear but you are still trying to love me and that's more than others might get.

do not mistake my anger for being consumed by it. do not mistake what you think I am for what I truly am.

you stare at your hands. the water runs over them. no matter how hard you scrub, they're still red.

I am full of anger. I think I always have been.

yours is the lifeblood of the universe. you struggle and bare your teeth, fist raised in the air as you try to leave an imprint on history. you will not die forgotten. no matter how many try to erase you.

you burn to light the darkness.

I have not forgotten the taste of blood, all copper and metallic and hot. I have not forgotten the lightning up my spine, cold and warm all the same, nor the way fear balled in the depths of my throat and strangled my voice. I have not forgotten how to be a wild creature.

when a phoenix burns, he is reborn in the ashes of who he was. we assume the phoenix is not hurt by this, assume it is part of a natural cycle of life and death and rebirth. the secret is that the phoenix burns, caught in an unending cycle of immortality. he is bound to life in a way no other creature is.

when they say you burn... they never quite prepare for the ashes.

stardust in your hair, constellations on your lips. even the skies know your names. you have gone to war, and war has followed you home.

blood drips from my neck a throat you tried to cut in your desperation to silence me I am still here. I am still alive. you do not get to dictate the circumstances of my death.

Little starchild, such secrets you hold in your heart. You gasp for breath, racing after shooting stars and falling short every time. You walk among legends and giants, and when you speak, they listen. Tell me, starchild, who are you to earn this?

You look at me like I'm stardust carried on the cosmic wind. When I finally convince you I am not, your hands touch my skin as if afraid they'll tear and break it like so much paper. Do not be so afraid, love. I have withstood far worse than the touch of hands meant for war. I accepted you for everything you are the moment I fell in love — a creature of war and conflict. We are not so different, you and I.

do you ever stop and wonder that unending fuzzy numbness how it drags time on so how it steals away the gold and shine from everything you do do you ever stop to ask why why me why today why

when they ask you, dear child, what it was like to die, do you tell them that it was cold? do you speak of the spreading numbness from the site of your wound? or do you smile, letting the ache in your eyes answer?

your blood sings for war, oh child of the stars. your ribs ache beneath the strain of breathing, buried girl. you scream for absolution, and the gods do not give it to you.