If you were to speak of me again...

I have a client, so broken by her own hatred
that she emerges glowing in the summer light
mind on fire lit by rage
Everything she loves is broken.

Ambition, pride, hope - all gone.
She has shattered her illusion of good,
wise, noble, enough.
Fuck all of that, she says.

She is but a glimmer of light in
my heart at this instant, and she is not
even that, for she is ever-changing
and there is no truth I can cling to of her.

Her truth is ungraspable,
fleeting, somewhere between hate and the
tiniest blush of love,
she is alive and dying still.

She is the best, most powerful client
I have ever had, and full of cowardice too
She is beautiful and ugly,
expansive and small.

I asked her to step into the fire
out of love, broke down her refuge
smashed her favorite trees
and she sat and did not cry.

She stood up to the challenge
of the burning forest, adding the
fucking kindling herself
until everything was gone.

Looking back into the ashes,
face glowing, eyes dry,
she is empty, free,
and I am proud.