Since I was little, I burned too bright,
And watched them brace against my light
Like weather they never asked for,
Until I believed the storm was mine to own.
The longer I stayed, the smaller I became,
Twisting myself to fit their narrow frame.
So I dreamed of leaving.I grew up,
Crossed continents and oceans,
Chasing air unclaimed by others' notions,
So I could finally breathe.
Little did I know
That the ones across the water
Were more afraid of their own reflection—
A fear my presence set in motion.Any toe out of line,
Any step outside their design,
Was violently rejected.
They handed me their self-hatred
And called it mine to carry.
I tasted the suffocation in the air,
Even from the ones who claimed to care.
So I went right back
To my childhood pain
And did what I had always known:
Tame the fire until it burned smaller,
Small enough to keep the peace, grow colder.In every room I stood alone inside the crowd.
Every hand that flinched and pulled away
Only pulled me closer to my own divine way.
They didn't know, neither did I,
That I was always being guarded—
That the fire they so feared
Was never meant to be thwarted.
It was not a weapon
But an alchemical gate.I have always arrived with a certain intensity;
I don't wade in shallow talk.
Scorpio in my third
Pulls conversation under
Like a hand of quiet thunder,
Dragging a body underwater,
Past the sunlit shallows,
Past the small, kind lies,
Into the inky dark
Where nothing disguised survives.I see the gold in you first.
I hold it up like a flame;
You drift closer without knowing why
And forget to guard the gate.
Then I turn you toward the mirror,
Where your own shadows wait—
The ones you've hidden out of fear,
Reflected back, too close to ignore.
Most people run.
I watch their backs disappear
Like dry leaves carried off by an autumn wind.Yet some brave souls choose to stay.
They face the mirror
And don't look away.
They sit inside the same fire others fled,
The one that always burns in me,
Steady and built to cleanse.
Burn off the mask,
Burn off the ache,
Burn until there's only ash
And the version of them that was always torn
Between staying hidden and being born
Finally chooses.What they buried as shame and guilt,
The fire hands back to them as gift.
What they hid as weakness
Stands up and calls its power.
The shadow was never the adversary;
It was their divinity
Wearing a disguise
So heavy they forgot
They were the ones who told it to hide.I am not cruel; I am love—
A love that's more mirror than lullaby.
Before I was anyone's mirror or fire,
I was first my own, I can't deny.
I have died more times than I can count,
Risen from depths that would drown most out.
That's why the phoenix rises on my left arm,
Wings caught mid-flight through fire,
Above it, a blue lotus, calm—
Reminder of the wisdom only burning teaches.The longer I live, the more I come to know:
The same fire that made people flinch
Was divine protection,
Dressed as rejection,
So I would never stray
From my own way.
No matter how difficult it got,
It was always worth
Becoming who I am today.I don't do this with calculated intention
Or preplanned orchestration.
I'm only a woman on her mission.
My job is to show up whole,
And that alone unsettles the soul.
My presence speaks for itself.
So tell me, love,
Will you run,
Or will you burn clean?