Ascended from Ashes

Tales and Poetry from the Lost Years: the chronicles of my struggle to climb out of the dark abyss and back into the light; finding my truth and myself again after years of feeling broken and lost.

The following poem is the foundation for this collection of writing; it is the story of where I have been and what I have endured on my journey of becoming.

Ascended from Ashes

I started a songbird

with a sweet melody.

A joyful song in my soul;

I was happy and free.

One day my life merged with another; 

I dreamt of creating a new harmony...

Instead, expectations and plans created a cage 

that had been carefully crafted for me. 

Years of neglect stole the song from my soul

and I forgot the feeling of free.

Denial insisted this cage was where I belonged

Fearing the truth of my captivity.

So I polished and gilded the bars till they shined, 

trapped without hope in my sorrow.

Silent and lonely, my dreams were long gone

I began to care not for tomorrow.

Now only a shell of my former self,

An ornament abandoned to rust,

Unsure that existing could be something more

Bereft of love, direction, and trust.

Then I was reminded of my soul’s forgotten song; 

memory beckoning to me.

Pointed out that I had the key all along.

Only I could set myself free...

Free from the prison my life had become:

A cage built of lies that “should be”;

Free if only I faced all my fears,

The path to freedom lied within me.

Doubt was at war with my soul’s deepest longing,

Knowing to stay meant I would not survive;

I gazed at the sky through new eyes

full of hope--

Determined, at long last, to thrive.

I struck the match, setting fire to my cage

Liberty at the cost of destruction

The life I had built, an inferno of pain

giving way to new freedom and passion.

The wild heart inside me began to soar

before I could take to the skies.

Finally able to break free from this life

which was built out of heartache and lies.

I glance at my gilded prison in flames

All around me blazes and crashes

And now, as the Phoenix I have become,

I rise:

Ascended from Ashes.

~Raya Soleil