Phoenix

Phoenix

By Candace Shultz

Your words wrapped around my body

like a lover's embrace.

They whispered in my ears.

They stuck in my throat until I choked.

Like a python, they squeezed the air out of me,

suffocating me until there was nothing left.

Years later, the words have faded

like smoke lifting in the wind,

but the emotions they evoked still linger.

I am a candle, my flame snuffed out

by your cold careless breath.

My footsteps echo in the dark.

I stumble and fall as I walk blindly

up the stairs in the pitch black,

but I rise up again and again

until I feel the chains falling away.

My little flame reignites and flickers.

Then it blazes as it burns away the pain,

and I rise from the ashes renewed.