The Phoenix by Valerie Parente

My mind has a body,
and it was engulfed in flames,
it could have been thirty seconds,
but the heat went on for days.

I felt every part of my anatomy,
reduce to ash and bones,
but sentience was still there,
that’s when I felt the quality of soul.

Like magma in a crevice,
it pooled and it overflowed,
then something strange happened,
and I felt my suffering erode.

Miraculous bird under the sun,
I was resurrected at dawn,
a phoenix with empathy so big,
there was death, but I’m not gone.

It’s the destruction and decay,
then the unstoppable sunrise,
how the light will always persist,
and I am one with that demise.

That’s how we begin again,
so much better than before,
that’s how we understand our blessings
you die, then you are reborn.