Ascended From Ashes
Raya Soleil
I am a woman with a gypsy soul who has wandered far off the beaten path in search of authenticity and truth. My writing tells the story of the struggles I have gone through as well as the joy I have found in following my wild heart in pursuit of passion and the process of becoming myself again.
The Poetry Collection
Tales and Poetry from the Lost Years: the chronicles of my struggle to climb out of the dark abyss and back into the light; finding my truth and myself again after years of feeling broken and lost.
The following poem is the foundation for this collection of writing; it is the story of where I have been and what I have endured on my journey of becoming.
ASCENDED FROM ASHES
I started a songbird
with a sweet melody.
A joyful song in my soul;
I was happy and free.
One day my life merged with another;
I dreamt of creating a new harmony...
Instead, expectations and plans created a cage
that had been carefully crafted for me.
Years of neglect stole the song from my soul
and I forgot the feeling of free.
Denial insisted this cage was where I belonged
Fearing the truth of my captivity.
So I polished and gilded the bars till they shined,
trapped without hope in my sorrow.
Silent and lonely, my dreams were long gone
I began to care not for tomorrow.
Now only a shell of my former self,
An ornament abandoned to rust,
Unsure that existing could be something more
Bereft of love, direction, and trust.
Then I was reminded of my soul’s forgotten song;
memory beckoning to me.
Pointed out that I had the key all along.
Only I could set myself free...
Free from the prison my life had become:
A cage built of lies that “should be”;
Free if only I faced all my fears,
The path to freedom lied within me.
Doubt was at war with my soul’s deepest longing,
Knowing to stay meant I would not survive;
I gazed at the sky through new eyes
full of hope--
Determined, at long last, to thrive.
I struck the match, setting fire to my cage
Liberty at the cost of destruction
The life I had built, an inferno of pain
giving way to new freedom and passion.
The wild heart inside me began to soar
before I could take to the skies.
Finally able to break free from this life
which was built out of heartache and lies.
I glance at my gilded prison in flames
All around me blazes and crashes
And now, as the Phoenix I have become,
I rise:
Ascended from Ashes.
~Raya Soleil