Lizzy Burnam 🐞

when fathers drowned and mothers 
wore their terror like a mask. 
the girl who learned she was only
a body 
with the eyes of a beast. 
a little God in her small way, tho
she grinned 
and they heard her growl. 
one by one, they 
turned away to stare at their own 
reflection. 
me, the moth? 
you, the flame? 
Medusa laughed. 
she can make a flower bloom 
with her own spilled blood. 
someday 
you’ll get so old, you’ll grow young again
and then you’ll know her face. 
struck 
by a mortal arm when her fire was white
and forged a heart 
like a wrought iron gate. 
come, she said, learn how 
to be brave.