Phoenix (Unapologetically Me)
I folded Thursday into the pocket of a peach,
it bruised before agreeing.
Someone whispered,
“Your halo has fingerprints.”
I wore them anyway.
My frontal lobe built cathedrals from unfinished apologies,
every stained-glass window
watching me blink backwards.
The parietal lobe
forgot where my hands ended
and where your expectations began.
You called it guilt.
I called it gravity
wearing expensive perfume.
There are rabbits under my tongue.
They keep digging exits
that only become entrances.
If I swallow every mirror,
will reflection finally become nutrition?
If every clock grows antlers,
who keeps teaching time
to bleed?
Phoenix—
unapologetically me.
I molt into feathers
that smell like burned cinnamon,
wet iron,
hospital roses,
and snow that remembers fire.
Love keeps knocking
with someone else’s fingerprints.
Phoenix—
don’t clap.
Ash applauds itself.
You wanted guilt.
I brought geology.
Now every mountain
is carrying my name
like a splinter.
The amygdala
keeps breeding wolves
inside porcelain teacups.
My hippocampus
stores your promises
between extinct colors
and recipes for thunder.
The hypothalamus
conducts weather
through my bloodstream,
declaring drought
inside flooded rooms.
The insula
licks the inside of silence,
tasting copper,
ink,
green apples,
and forgotten birthdays.
My occipital lobe
sees invisible bruises
glowing louder than sunlight.
The temporal lobe
hears moths arguing
inside cathedral bells.
The cerebellum
teaches elegant falling—
every collapse
with proper posture.
The brainstem
keeps signing life
in illegible cursive,
refusing every resignation letter
my mouth submits.
The corpus callosum
is a rope bridge
where certainty
throws stones at wonder.
The prefrontal cortex
wears a judge’s robe
stitched from smoke,
pronouncing every heartbeat
guilty
before evidence arrives.
I hate
that I can’t sculpt people
into the monuments
I imagine hiding inside them.
Potential keeps screaming
from locked basements,
while vanity
decorates the upstairs windows.
Lovers of themselves—
they polish reflections
until the mirrors forget
they were made from sand.
My heart isn’t red.
It’s a parliament
where every chamber
votes against the next.
The left atrium
collects unfinished songs.
The right atrium
adopts abandoned echoes.
The left ventricle
fires arrows into tomorrow.
The right ventricle
keeps resurrecting yesterday.
The valves
are four stubborn philosophers
arguing over whether mercy
is a muscle
or a rumor.
Some call them spiritual gifts.
I call them birds
that refuse cages
yet still mistake
every open sky
for ownership.
Down the first rabbit hole—
language begins eating its alphabet.
Down the second—
perfume grows fingerprints.
Down the third—
every shadow casts a person.
Down the fourth—
the moon remembers
being an eye.
Down the fifth—
your conscience borrows my shoes
and walks into the sea.
Down the sixth—
logic grows feathers.
Down the seventh—
every answer
becomes another question
wearing your mother’s voice.
Down the eighth—
I meet myself
already leaving.
She smiles
with all thirty-two teeth
and none of my reasons.
Phoenix—
unapologetically me.
My neurons
don’t fire.
They bloom.
My synapses
aren’t bridges.
They’re rumors
passing electricity
like forbidden fruit.
My dopamine
keeps writing checks
joy cannot cash.
My serotonin
hangs wet laundry
inside eclipses.
My oxytocin
keeps hugging ghosts.
My cortisol
plants forests
made entirely of alarms.
Phoenix—
the ash smells sweet.
The sweetness tastes sharp.
The sharpness sounds blue.
The blue feels heavier
than my own skeleton.
If I am wrong—
why does certainty
keep asking me
for directions?
If I am right—
why do the rabbits
keep running deeper?
Written by Marguerite Grace
Copyright Protected
verse, possies, sonnets, and short stories 