A Phoenix is Always Born Again

I don't remember any sounds coming from me.
No crying, no screaming, although I knew it was there.
I stared at the water glass on the bedside table,
I watched the rings disperse as the glass shook.

Steel bars imprisoned me, cold ropes around my wrists.
But the rest was hot.
There were kisses without softness, touches without gentleness.
There was piercing, pounding, pouring wet stench.

I remember a dull, hot knife stabbing my belly repeatedly.
It burned me, tore me, but I couldn't hear my scream.
I imagined that I had caught fire.
I could feel the scorching red flames, and they consumed me.

Swollen, red, blue-black wrists... bleeding, soft-pink flesh...
All reduced to dust.
So there I laid, a pile of ash,
Pieces of me blown away by the wind.

"But a phoenix is always born again," I told myself.
"She shakes the soot from her wings and flys away,
More beautiful than before.
And while in flight she sings, so that all can hear her song."