I Was Reborn as a Phoenix
by Stephany Freitas. Third place in the Writory International Poetry Contest, February 2026, scored 95 out of 100.
I Was Reborn as a Phoenix I burned inside while I smiled. When everything turned to ash, I discovered: the end was not a fall, it was the beginning of my wings. From silence, I made flame, and from pain, a path. There was a time when my name was an echo, repeated only by the walls that learned how to hear me break. Each step was a plea for shelter, each gesture an attempt to remain whole. I carried fires in my chest without knowing that fire also illuminates. I mistook ruin for failure when it was only fertile ground for another version of myself. Ashes piled up in the days, in postponed dreams, in words swallowed so as not to wound or to not exist too much. Even so, something breathed beneath what seemed dead. The fire did not come as punishment; it came as a language. It spoke in flames what silence could not say. Burning was the most honest way to go on. I learned that not all destruction is loss. Some are maps. Some know exactly where they need to touch for flight to become possible. My wings were not born clean. They came stained with soot, marked by the weight of what remained. But they fly. And that is enough. Today, I walk in agreement with fire. It does not threaten me; it recognizes me. I am made of what endured when everything demanded an end. If I still burn, it is because I live. If I still blaze, it is because I go on.
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