Alone is miles deep

Alone is miles deep.

My heart is a canyon of grief. 

There is a voice, a little girl whimpering. My ears shiver around her. Her pleas. The fire, she complains, is too hot. Her skin burns.

It's torture. I'll die, she stammers.

Another voice emerges, paperdry but trickling faster into the space left behind. Talks about befriending the fire. Fire breathing, she insists, is not only possible; it is inevitable.

It is in your blood to partner with fire, ancestral inheritance awakening.

Take it all inside. Let it burn away artifice. Clear way for the authentic. Make space for passion. The birth will be painful but joy is sure to follow.

The girl is screaming now, so loudly she's drawn blood, spewing from her tiny mouth. 

I hold her but I spare my energy. No assurances. I just let her bleed out.