The Ghost and the Phoenix

I died the day I said goodbye

I snipped the last painful thread

Anchoring me to the past

And let myself be consumed

By its amber-titian fury

Those searing, fiery tendrils

Stripping my flesh and psyche

Reducing the hurt to embers

Erasing the girl that I was

I died that day and left a ghost

Haunted by the memories

A pale, translucent specter

No substance for emotion

No room for vibrant color

And then, slowly, I was reborn

Rising from the ashes

Of that black semicolon

A scarlet phoenix ready

To forge the unwritten future

I wanted to strike the page red

With my feathered confidence

The ruby dawn was mine to claim

I used my claret wings to soar

I exercised that empty ghost

No more a limpid, broken girl

I died the day I said goodbye

And then I came back scarlet