There was a woman I used to be
before the fire came for her,
not to destroy, though it felt that way some nights,
but to burn off everything
that was never truly mine to carry.

They don’t tell you this is initiation.
They call it change, they call it symptom,
they hand you pamphlets about hot flashes
and say nothing about the holy work of it,
how the body becomes a temple being emptied out,
swept clean of everyone else’s expectations,
room by room, cycle by cycle,
until what’s left is just you.

I lost her in there for a while.
Some nights I didn’t recognize
the woman sweating through 3am,
skin too tight, sleep too thin,
wondering where she went.

But she didn’t die. She was shedding.

The crone doesn’t arrive by accident.
She’s earned, forged in this exact fire,
this exact threshold the old traditions knew
and we forgot to honor.
Every hormone leaving
was making space
for something wiser to move in.

I’m finding her now, on the other side of the burning.
She’s steadier than the woman before her.
She bleeds wisdom instead of blood.
She doesn’t perform anymore.
She just is.

I thought this passage would take her from me.
Instead it building her.

I’m almost here now.
Ready to welcome home, my elder-self.
I’m waiting for you …