she doesn’t remember burning

call it birdbrain or selective memory

she knows only that she once was

one iteration and

now is another

told she is really the same, still

a phoenix

but feels as different as

a chimera

pieced together from parts

that shouldn’t be hers, can’t be hers

because it is others who burn

yes?

in the stories it is always others

reborn they say

but birth and growth are painful and awkward

enough

to make one declare contentment

with scraggly feathers and cloudy eyes

with being ground-bound and weak

how brave they say

forgetting it takes but a moment

to combust

and it isn’t a choice

and it hurts to burn

at least she thinks it does

she is grateful she cannot remember

next time, she will wish a fire djinni

to reach into the smoking pyre

of her ashes and take a pinch

before she is reborn

then maybe she will be missing a talon

or suffer a bald patch in her plumage, but

she will have the ashes to remind her

of her burning

so she will always know

she once was a phoenix

that once was a phoenix

that will be a phoenix

again