All Is Not Lost

She’s a work in progress, a fluidity of contradictions,

Some days easier than others, some days more than a little rough,

She has nights of no sleep, tears flushing through her pain,

But come the dawning of the sun, she wakes, showing the best of her is tough.

**

On the darkest of nights, her wolf loves to play hide and seek,

She runs from the pain and bares her teeth when found,

She quivers under the strain, anxious about the uncertainty,

And her whimpers are the only sound around.

**

When she turns to her dragon — the one wrapped around her heart, nestled in her chest,

She is hit with the fierceness of her dragon’s rejection; a head bowed, a back turned,

Exhausted from being consistently slain, weary of the constant onslaught,

While she guards that precious heart, scolding her demons forever burned.

**

It’s on these nights that she cannot rely upon her lioness,

For she is found cowering in the corner of her soul; forlorn and worn,

Whispering over and over again, “I’m done fighting day in and day out,

I’ve had to fight from the minute I was born.”

**

For awhile there she feels she is forever alone,

What with her wolf hiding from the pain,

Her dragon rejecting her call to arms,

And her lioness crippled from the constant strain.

**

But she’s left with her last ally — her brilliant and powerful phoenix,

Who she now turns to with that age old question shining in her eyes,

She feels the warmth of flaming wings wrapping her in armour,

Soothing the trauma of forever goodbyes.

**

She holds on tight, at times by just her bloodied fingertips,

And she cries in the darkness of her solitude — her world crusted with abandoned hate,

Until she hears the booming voice of her phoenix sound within her ears,

“Stand tall my love, for we will rise once again, just sit within your darkness and patiently wait.”

Please visit my website if you'd like more information on my published book, Battle Angel : The Ultimate She Warrior.

Originally published on Medium