Phoenix

Most people are betrayed by those they loved dearly.

Some people watch the earth burn because of it.

Only I’ve had the pleasure of witnessing both in such a short span of time.

My eyes zip across the scene before me:

a puke green meadow with short grass blades dulled by the chill that pricks the air like a slim needle–

a sky the color of asphalt worn and tired from the strain thrust upon it by the clouds tracking across it–

a porcelain set of stars, once the diamonds of the sky, reduced to mere specks of dust in my view. they cracked under the pressure.

That’s the world I live in.

Correction – that’s the world I lived in. The flames nipping the hem of my dress like two needy yet unrelenting hounds makes it pretty hard to forget the fact that I’m dying.

Right now, 

at this very moment.

As heat seeps into my skin, scorching the wooden pole I’m bound to, I glimpse the faces that seek to destroy me.

Their eyes all wear the same stare. One of discontentment, of boredom. They’ve done this before. They do it all the time. They’ll do it again.

I’m not the first. 

I certainly won’t be the last.

The fire flies up my arms, peeling the skin off my flesh. It hums as chunks fall to the ground like shooting stars. Ones that I never got to see fall from the sky. Everything’s so dull here. The people especially.

Lids don’t lock. Tears don’t drop. Mouth doesn’t unfurl to let out a shriek. Lips merely curl into a smirk.

They think they know what they’re doing, but they don’t. I’m used to this. 

The world was never my oyster, my beautiful pearl.

Why would it be?

This is a man’s world.

An extrovert’s world.

A human’s world.

What would I know of those things?

I’m a witch. Or so they tell me.

I sleep when others wake. 

I dream when others come up dry.

I burn while they can only hope to witness my blaze of glory.

They don’t, though. The average soul never does.

My entire body is coated in paint the color of a sunrise I’ve never seen. 

Wait – 

1. That’s not right. 

Hang on, I’m telling the story wrong.

All that’s left of me is bone now. But I’m not exposed. The flames aren’t the paint. They’re the painters, who’ve chosen me as the subject of their latest masterpiece.

The sunrise sets upon me, sewing me up into a new skin suit. The artist has blessed me with a gift. 

They’ve given me wings. Wings to fly up and far away from this place. Up to the place I’ve only dreamed of. Now it can be real. Now I can find home.

Now I can go to a world that’s mine. And mine alone.

No one owns me anymore. Perhaps they never did. Perhaps I let them.

And the best news of all:

I don’t have to wear that ugly sack of a dress ever again.