We wake to smoke in our lungs,
tongues tied in the language of our captors,
trying to use the system to destroy the system,
trying to carve a door into the walls
with the very knives that built them.
The fire was set long before we arrived.
It lives in the beams, in the blueprints,
in the hands that drew the map of our exit
just to tell us there is none.
There is a way out,
but it costs knowing what we should not,
costs seeing past the veil,
costs a name we can never get back.
They say the house must be saved.
They say the fire is only in our minds.
They say we must stay to be worthy.
They say to burn is to be cleansed.
But what if we are not the ones burning?
What if we are the fire?
What if the walls were never meant to hold us?
What if the only way out
is to let it all collapse?
To touch the dark is to know the full shape of the light.
To walk the fire is to know the nature of the house.
To unmake the prison, one must first name it.
Let the beams crumble into dust.
Let the roof fold into sky.
Let the embers carry our voices,
speaking in the tongues they tried to take,
becoming the storm they swore we could never summon.
We are not lost in the blaze.
We are becoming it.
How can we make our way out of a burning house from inside of it?
