i was reborn, like a phoenix
but without all the glory.
i didn't set the hospital on fire; i struggled  
to pull myself from the ashes
of a former prodigy,
one entwined with madness
in all the right ways
laced with misery like a noir heroine,
so sexily depressing-
whereas now i am just empty

i did not emerge unscathed, no,
not like the fledgling, i
am covered in scars and faultlines from where
the sorrow tried rip itself
from my sorry body
and the crimson glue holding me together
replenishes itself more diluted each time

before i died
i swung through technicolor
episodes of scarlet, rose,
ecstatic white, and the
sapphire blue to haunt my dreams
waking and at night
but the color leached away,
the antiseptic began to pervade, refilled my veins
and purged me of everything but grey.

before my death,
i reigned over the darkness, banished it
when it did not suit me,
manipulated reason, lived in a waking dreamland,
in complete control of my life-
but now, when i am fragile as eggshell,
it's the only place i can hide,
a haven where i can act like the lack of light
masks an imagined vivacity and not a skeleton in flat black and white,
disguises and emboldens me,
allows me to be whole again,
to forget the borders, my limitations
indiscernable in dusk

i used to cast my own light-
now i am my own shadow
and in the dark i fumble for
what i used to be,
reconnect myself with the world
throw myself from the cliff
and hope to find my wings again