Milk, Salt Water, and Flames

Oh, I know baby girl,

I know it hurts,

I know it’s not how you imagined it would be.

Let yourself feel,

As it swells,

Rushing through to your fingertips.

Allow it the space it demands,

Then release,

Cry over the spilled milk,

Feel the mess swirl through your soul,

Overflowing, 

Your eyes once blinded, renewed in the wake,

The drip, on your skin and from your flesh alike,

Returning you to the earth below.

As your tears dry, awaken,

Feel the salt on your lips intertwined with your knowing,

Sandpaper running softly, yet firmly, across the surface,

A return to what once was,

A stripping of the noise as your varnish falls cleanly through the air,

Your power lying within the newly exposed layers,

Raw,

Unexpecting,

Taste the freedom, the kind that solely dines with failure,

Or, choose another path,

Sit within the flames,

Scream through your engulfment for all the times you kept your mouth shut and your legs open,

There is no woman more capable than the witch after the fire,

Reduced to the nothingness,

 The nothingness this world has demanded she be over and over and over again,

As she realizes- she still exists. 

Yet, this time, she is here only for herself.

 A lifetime of swallowed rage,

A lifetime of goodness staring back at her mixed within the ashes.

The glowing eyes of all those who accepted her sacrifice as their own right.

On her birthday she was told, “This world was not made for you, this air not yours to breath, your only rightful space is given in belonging to another,”

And she thinks bullshit.

And she Knows,

There is no mess she cannot clean,

There is no space she cannot burn,

On the other side, waiting, 

A fresh glass of milk,

The one that was meant for her,

The one she must ask for,

The one she must demand.