I’ve burned a lot to survive. Versions of me that loved too loud. Versions that begged to be chosen.
Grief I thought I’d buried, only to set it alight again when the season called for it.
Litha makes it easy to focus on what we’re releasing, but what about what we refuse to give up?
What I have left
This is a list of what the fire hasn’t taken. My ability to write through pain without erasing it. My voice, even when it shook, even when it wanted to vanish.
My hunger for truth. My softness, even when it was mocked or manipulated. My magic, especially the kind that hides in daily rituals, not sabbat circles. My will to live, even when I hated the world for making me prove it.
Some parts of me have already been through the fire and walked out different scarred, sure, but still whole.
Some things are too sacred to be burned.
There’s a kind of strength in knowing what can’t be stripped from you even by trauma, even by grief, even by your own self-destruction cycles.
So as I cast into the fire what no longer fits.
I hold close what has always been mine.
I kiss the parts that endured.
I water the roots that stayed intact.
Let this sun shine on what I’ve kept.
What I’ve rebuilt.
What I will never again set on fire.
Say it. Don’t spray it.