From ashes to ember

A poem about healing

Healing isn’t pretty.

No one tells you that part.

We talk about growth
like it’s soft
like it’s graceful
like it’s a butterfly moment.

But healing?

Healing is hysterical.
Manic.
Intense.
Raw.

The caterpillar turns itself 
into mush 
before it can emerge
anew. 

It’s ugly crying in the middle of the night
with swollen eyes
and tear-stained sheets.

It’s journals filled
and pages burned
because some pain
is too heavy
to carry forward.

It’s screaming into the emptiness
of the car -
a whole-body rage scream
because your body remembers
what your mind tries to forget.

It’s anxiety.
Panic.
Fear.

And sometimes
(often)
it doesn’t even look like healing at all.

Sometimes
(often)
it just feels like a fog
you can’t think your way out of.

A heavy quiet
that settles over your life
for months
or years.

You wonder
where your spark went.

Why everything feels dull
and distant
and harder than it used to be.

You think something is wrong with you.

You don’t realize
you’re in the middle
of becoming someone new.

Healing is losing people
you thought would stay forever.

And standing in the rubble
of the life you thought you had
trying to understand
what collapsed
and what can be salvaged.

It’s picking up the pieces
with shaking hands
and building something new.

It’s welcoming this emerging
version of you
rising from the ashes -
awkward,
unkempt,
unrecognizable.

And learning
to love her anyway.

Especially
because she’s awkward
and unkempt.

That’s the part
no one tells you.

Healing is alchemy.

It’s fire.

The kind that burns away
everything
that cannot stay.

And sometimes
the thing burning
is the very thing
you’re holding onto
the hardest.

Healing is fucking intense.

But if you stay in the fire long enough
you realize something.

You’re not burning up.
You’re being forged.

And somewhere in that fire
your voice comes back.

The one that was buried
under fear
and silence
and other people’s comfort.

The spark
you thought had died
turns out
to be ember.

Can you feel it 
begging to glow 
again? 

Healing is learning
how to take the pain
that almost broke you
and turn it into something else.

Something useful.
Something honest.
Something that might light the way
for someone else -
or for yourself.

And slowly,
quietly,
the power grows
where the pain once was.

.