she who dances with fire

she does not walk— she ignites. in the dark cathedral of ash and echoes, she spins, a silhouette carved from the mouth of a flame, hips swaying like the last breath of a phoenix. her dress— not cloth, but the wind of burning wings, each thread crackling with a story that refused to be extinguished. arms flung skyward— not surrender, but invocation. the fire does not consume her. it listens. it bows. around her, shadows rise— not to haunt, but to bear witness to a woman who does not flee the blaze, but becomes it. she is every scorched past that refused to stay buried. every no that grew teeth. every silence that shattered into song. they said: "let her be careful— she plays too close to the edge." but they did not see— the edge was her altar. and she? the prayer set alight. she is not burning. she is the match. the myth. the revolution in a red dress. and when the world asks how she survived the inferno, tell them— she did not survive it. she danced it into dust.