She woke up one day to find

she wasn’t even a has-been.

She was a not-yet,

a fetal position bud,

a still-born dream,

an unnamed embryo.

While others unfurled,

she remained;

pupal confinement in whisper-case,

hers was a thought not conceived,

an alphabet disjointed

whose words could not contain flesh.

When the womb of her existence

was held up in placental mirror,

when she saw,

and denial was torn from wretched unformed fingers,

her pain became a labour of love,

speeding her through the birth canal,

fiery ring of the Phoenix.

With vernix and blood

scrubbed from her infancy,

with umbilical apron strings

deliberately cut,

her lungs found their Voice –

and how she wailed!

Lusty newborn cries

wrenched her chrysalis open

and she ,

on newly minted butterfly wings,

Bloomed.

Flew.

Soared!