The Mortal Phoenix

Content Warning: This poem touches on themes of trauma, loneliness, and loss. 

Image Credits: Behance

Once, a little girl was left behind,
Abandoned by a mother, unseen by a father,
Ill-treated by a sister, pushed aside by 

Those meant to protect her.

And in that void of cold neglect,

She found her strength in the spaces between.

She fought through the silence,
The empty rooms where no one spoke her name.
She fought against the world that left no place for her,
Finding scraps of kindness in shadows,
Holding on to fragments—
To the smallest whispers of light she could find.

Years passed.
She became a young woman,
Fighting still, but now with different armour—
Bound by vows,
And with children to protect,
In a marriage that drained her of breath,
Where words were like chains, and love a ghost.

She gave everything,
And when there was nothing left,
She gave even more.

But the price of survival was too high—

Her spirit collapsing in the quiet hours.

Time wore on.
A woman broken but not defeated,
She buried the scars beneath silent prayers,
For the sake of her children—
To give them the stability she never knew.
But the ghosts never left—

Lingering in the corners of her mind,
Lurking in the cracks she couldn't fill.

Yet, she pressed on.
Fighting.
Enduring.
Pretending she was whole.

Then came the years that crushed her soul.
The society that blamed,
The family that villanised,
The whispers that branded her a failure.
They never understood.
They never saw her struggle.

She held on,
For her children.
For one last chance to breathe.
And, she tried again—
Once more, she reached for a life
That had always slipped through her fingers.

Only this time, the weight was too much.

Eight years ago.

She stopped.

The man who should have been her partner,

Who should have helped bear the weight,

And ease the carried pain,

Stayed wretched.

Indifferent.

He abandoned them one final time,

And the fault—

Was again

Hers.

Forsaken by God,

Forsaken by justice,

She had struggled too long,

Too hard,

For a life that was never meant for her.

And now, the ghosts of her past were all she had left.

Wounds that never healed,

Echoes of every battle she fought.

Today, she is gone.

She walked away,

Not from love, but from the ache that never ceased.

Not from her children,

But to give herself the peace she had never known.

And when her heart stopped,

She finally left it all behind—

The broken promises,

The unspoken hurt,

And the years of survival.

She finally walked away,

And in the stillness, she found her peace.

A quiet release that freed her soul.