Sparks of Phoenix Read online

  to be written

  and rewritten

  once more

  about someone like you.

  The pages are too full

  and the lines have

  no more room

  for the same old story.

  I must turn the page.

  and start anew.

  I must start

  a new story

  about someone new.

  Your heart won’t heal

  as long as it stays

  in the same place where

  pain entered it.

  There is fear in the unknown.

  But fear

  does not mean

  settling.

  It does not mean stopping.

  Your fears are not meant

  to keep you in fear.

  They are meant

  to keep you moving.

  Your fears are meant

  to make you rise.

  Let them judge you.

  They will live with their

  judgment,

  and you will live

  with your truth.

  It was not those I loved

  who hurt me the most

  but those I trusted.

  There is a difference.

  You are not defined by

  who respects you but

  by who you respect.

  You are not

  the pain that broke you.

  You are who it made you become.

  They will curse the day

  that they chose to deny

  your story.

  If they are talking about you behind your back, shame on them. Let them talk. If someone spends their time talking about you negatively, what does that say about them?

  If they blame you for what you went through, let them blame you. You know what happened to you. If they blame you for burning in a fire someone put you through, that speaks of them, not of you. Instead of helping you heal, they are telling you that your soul’s burning was your own fault. You don’t need people like that in your life.

  If they see you screaming for help and pretend not to hear, let them turn away. Their refusal to act does not mean that you don’t have a voice. It means that they are in denial of the effort they need to make to cause change.

  Those who don’t have the courage to acknowledge that you’ve been wronged are complicit in your harm. They are bystanders. Don’t take that lightly. Anyone who stays quiet during your time of need either does not care about you, is too afraid to show you their support, or doesn’t believe you. And you don’t need to think of any of those people during your time of struggle. Continue to care about them if you do; show them support when they need it; and believe them when they speak their truth. Because that is who you are. But don’t let their lack of support make you feel unworthy. Their stances show their character, not yours.

  Last but not least, remember that staying true to yourself is the most important thing. Don’t allow gossip, hypocrisy, misogyny, or bias to bring you down. You are way ahead of those things. And you are standing by the truth by standing up against them. Whoever you are and wherever you are—keep going. Keep fighting. Keep being a warrior. Do not give up.

  From the ashes,

  I rose

  and I stitched the pieces

  of my soul

  back together

  with gold.

  My wings are no longer broken.

  My wings are hurting,

  but they are healing.

  There are days when

  pain wakes up with you.

  Welcome it.

  Strength does not mean

  that you have no struggle

  or that you are completely

  at peace

  with a hurtful past.

  It means that you

  don’t allow the past

  to make you

  shrink

  and fall again.

  If they can’t love

  the broken pieces of you,

  they won’t be able to love

  the whole you.

  Your pieces make you—

  broken or back together.

  I sometimes feel that

  I can’t live with myself

  because of what you did

  to me

  and got away with.

  Then I remember:

  How could you

  live with yourself

  knowing what you did

  to me?

  I will not live with your guilt.

  I will not carry your weight.

  It is yours to carry.

  You hit me with

  your pain

  and I turn it into

  poetry.

  You look at me and wonder

  how I can be so strong while

  I am fighting wars inside.

  Some days I win.

  Some days I lose.

  But both days, I smile.

  How dare you tell me

  that I am only hurt

  because you no longer want me.

  You don’t put a knife

  in someone’s heart and twist

  and twist

  and twist

  then tell them that

  that they’re only hurt

  because you are no longer

  twisting.

  No one has the right to judge the pain inside of your heart. They are not the ones who sit by your bedside when you cry yourself to sleep at night. They are not the ones who carry the mountains on your shoulders as you get through the day. They are not the ones who are wondering where your happiness went. They are not the ones aching to smile again. No one should ever judge a pain they’ve never felt. Those who love you don’t judge you. They listen to you. They understand you. And they love the pain out of you. They don’t try to beat the pain out of you by denying you the right to feel it. So don’t feel ashamed that you’re in pain just because someone makes you feel that you have no right to feel it.

  Don’t say

  “I don’t have a choice.”

  Don’t say

  “I don’t have a voice.”

  Stand up for yourself.

  I will be anything but

  silenced.

  If the voice inside your head

  is not yours,

  shut it up and

  kick it out.

  The past is behind you

  for a reason.

  Don’t go back to it

  hoping that it will change.

  No one can change history.

  It already happened.

  No one can make a day that ended

  start again.

  If you try to change the past,

  it will only break you again.

  You cannot change

  a beginning

  that began in the past.

  You can end it

  and start a new beginning

  that begins now.

  If you speak and

  they don’t like what you have to say,

  they will try to silence you.

  Don’t lose hope.

  Your pain will be

  seen

  and felt.

  Your voice will be

  heard

  and echoed.

  The world has so much goodness

  in its heart for you.

  And it will

  fall into you.

  Be patient.

  We don’t relive our pain

  because we
want to

  but because it took

  parts of us

  that we can never get back.

  We are grieving while

  healing.

  I told you once:

  “I’d hate to write a heartbreak poem

  about you one day.”

  You got angry and said:

  “That would never happen.

  I already promised you

  that I will never walk away.”

  But here I am,

  writing pages and chapters

  to cleanse my soul of the pain

  that you promised to protect me from.

  Just because your love for me

  was not real,

  I will not deny my love for you.

  I am proud to have a heart

  that loves sincerely

  and a soul that smiled innocently

  for every poem you wrote me.

  Even though your words

  turned out to be

  just words,

  I thank you

  for allowing me to feel

  how much love my heart could give.

  I thank you

  for showing me

  that my heart could survive

  one more break.

  Thank you.

  It’s okay to never be okay

  with what happened to you.

  Just remember that

  not being okay with it

  does not mean that you

  can’t move

  past it.

  It might never stop never being okay,

  but you will be okay.

  You tried to silence me

  by putting my own hands over

  my mouth.

  My hands melted into my face,

  and all of my words transformed

  into action.

  Thank you.

  Don’t blame yourself

  for their

  unwillingness

  to put in the effort

  to fix their mistakes.

  I know you’re tired,

  but you have to keep going.

  Remember where you want to be.

  Remember who you want to be.

  Don’t allow yourself to give up.

  It may be an option,

  but don’t you choose it.

  You deserve more.

  Don’t lose hope.

  The truth always wins.

  You have every right to feel your pain.

  You have every right to feel unheard

  when they don’t listen.

  You have every right to bleed,

  to grieve,

  every time they stab you.

  Do not allow their belittling of

  your pain

  to make you

  ashamed

  of how you feel.

  Don’t live your life in fear

  of what they said

  or what they’ll say

  or what they might say.

  Live your truth,

  and be true to yourself.

  They will never be able to

  feel

  how much they hurt you

  even if you scream it

  into their hearts.

  If they were able to feel as you do,

  they would not have hurt you,

  so

  stop crumbling in front of them.

  They will not pick up the pieces of

  you.

  You have to do that.

  The first time I saw you in a coffee shop

  after you denied the whole story

  of us,

  you got up and left

  the moment you saw me.

  That hurt so much.

  And you will never know because

  I will never tell you.

  It reminded me of you

  letting go.

  It reminded me of you

  walking away.

  I cried, not because I missed you

  but because I hate that I had to see you.

  I hate you.

  I hate you.

  I hate you.

  That is what I really want to say.

  I’ve tried so hard not to,

  but

  I have to.

  I hate you.

  How did it feel

  to have someone like me

  love you?

  Did my innocence remind you

  of what you had before

  you turned into the devil

  that you are now?

  Did the spark in my eyes

  give you a fire

  to put out?

  Did the softness of my skin

  soothe the thorns on yours?

  Did the warmth of my heart

  melt the coldness of yours?

  Well,

  here is the strength of my vulnerability

  exposing the weakness of your manipulation.

  Excuse me, sir.

  I see you looking in the wrong place.

  You look at my face

  as if there is nothing to see

  other than

  the color of my eyes,

  the fairness of my skin,

  or the adventures that my body might take you on.

  You look at my body

  as if there is nothing to see

  other than

  the curves of mountains and valleys,

  as if my body is a land for you

  to journey,

  to discover,

  to occupy.

  Excuse me, sir.

  My body is not a place for your conquest.

  Don’t get me wrong—

  I am a mystery.

  I am a masterpiece.

  I carry with my body

  the cities of the world.

  I have, carved, on my body

  streets that you want me to hide

  because you see them as scars.

  I have, built, in my eyes,

  blazing fires that you want to put out

  because you are afraid

  to get burned.

  And if you dare to venture, sir,

  beyond the color of my eyes,

  beyond the touch of my skin,

  beyond the places on my body

  that you want to own,

  you will find oceans

  that you will drown in

  if you are not ready to sail.

  You will find mountains of wisdom

  that I have inherited from every woman, every mother, every girl on this earth.

  If you dare to venture beyond my skin,

  you will find skies filled with love and compassion that

  centuries of women have instilled within me.

  The problem, sir,

  is that you want to own parts of me

  instead of honor the depths of me.

  But what you should know, sir,

  is that only

  I

  own

  the map.

  I am not a land for you to occupy.

  I am not a ship for you to steer.

  I am not a fire for you to contain.

  I am not a property for you to put a price on.

  Whether I am young, old, or in-between,

  who I am and what I give to this world

  is not defined by the canvas that your eyes

  paint my body on.

  You see, sir, the way that you see me

 
says a lot more about you

  than it says about me.

  The way that you devalue

  the treasures in me

  says a lot more about you

  than it says about me.

  The way that you define the beauty of me

  with the pleasure that you get

  out of me

  says a lot more about you

  than it says about me.

  I am beautiful,

  not because of my face,

  not because of my body.

  I am beautiful because of the heart

  contained in this body.

  I am beautiful because of the mind

  controlling this body.

  So if you must grab me by something,

  let it be my heart.

  It is what makes the world

  a compassionate place.

  If you must grab me by something,

  let it be my mind.

  It is what spreads wisdom in this world

  like wildfire.

  And finally, sir,

  I must ask you:

  If the woman in me

  sees the human in you,

  why can’t the man in you

  see the human in me?

  For all the times

  you saw me and

  pretended not to see me or

  didn’t want to be seen with me:

  A day will come

  when I will no longer

  want to be seen by you or

  seen around you.

  It will be you

  waving at me

  from across the street

  and it will be me

  turning in the other direction.

  I want you to leave

  my place of peace

  as you’ve left me in

  your place of turmoil.

  When you are tempted

  to wish them pain,

  remember how it felt

  when they hurt you.

  Never wish them pain.

  That’s not who you are.

  If they caused you pain,

  they must have pain inside.

  Wish them healing.

  That’s what they need.

  It’s sad how

  you disappoint those

  who let you down

  when you speak of how

  they let you down.