By: Manal Rabiey
I was once a captive of others’ shadows,
planting my heart in their barren soil,
begging for water from their distant clouds,
and waiting for a sun that would never rise.
But the days came like a storm,
shattering the locks,
tearing apart every illusion,
and casting me into a desert without shade—
until I heard a voice within,
a voice like the call of the gods:
“Rise from your ashes;
the fire that burned you was the prophecy of your immortality.”
I walked through the corridors of night,
dragging the tattered threads of attachment behind me—
each thread a serpent coiled around my neck—
until I severed the last one with the sword of indifference.
I no longer seek arms to hold me,
nor faces to define me,
for I have carved my own features from moonstone
and forged wings from the feathers of falcons,
so I soar through a sky no one else can measure.
I have learned that absence is not death,
and loss does not devour us—
it strips us of the skin of illusion
so we may be born
