A Phoenix First Must Burn

by Patrice Caldwell

“In order to rise from its own ashes, a phoenix first must burn.”

Where is my fantasy, my future? Why don’t Black people exist in speculative worlds?

Black women are phoenixes. We are given lemons and make lemonade.

She’s got full lips and that smooth, dark-brown skin that can make a girl forget herself. A teasin’ sip, what my uncle would call it. Back on Earth when he’d see a woman in a park, one who got no time for nobody, sashayin’ through the city heat like a mirage to a man dyin’ o’ thirst.

Because, he said, if they take the time to translate their world into sound and color, that means they know love. That means we have a chance.

There’s a reason they use certain words in the military, words like eliminate and target instead of kill and person. It’s so you gain distance. It’s so you don’t waver. It’s so you don’t see your enemy close enough to see yourself.

I was branded lucky, but not magical, and the difference was enough to spare my life.

“Could you live knowing you had a chance to free many more than yourself, but you refused?”

It went without saying that hate and vengeance were not sentiments she’d learned from the nuns at the convent, so their God did not hear her. But there were other things in the desert, listening. They did not mind hate; they held no fault with vengeance. They found her offering pleasing and struck the deal.

And maybe survival itself was overrated, and a girl had not to fear death, and that’s the best she could do sometimes.

“No. You can, but hearts are your own to keep. They’re to keep you alive. Give your affection. Give your love. Give your time, but nothing so vital to your own survival. Be careful with giving away parts of yourself before you understand them fully. You’re free of the stars now, so choose wisely in the future. After you know yourself. Love is not supposed to poison your own well.”