Born to burn

WHO IS PHOENIX FAY BLACKWOOD? ____________________________

Still human. Still locked in. Still fighting to stay quiet and alive.

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She wasn’t raised. She was forged in the quiet between slammed doors, broken promises, and the bruises no one asked about. People liked to say pain builds character, but Phoenix knew better. Pain didn’t build anything; it burned things down. What rose from the ashes afterward, that was all you. She was five years old when her mother died. Himari, her name still tasted like fire and faded cherry blossoms in her memory. Her mother had thrown herself over Phoenix in the middle of a crash and never got up again. Phoenix remembered the glass shattering, the screaming, the smell of gasoline and blood soaking into her jeans like it belonged there. She didn’t remember being held after that. Not even once. Everything after became a blur of strange homes and stranger names, of cold beds and colder eyes, of foster parents with brittle smiles and tempers that cracked like glass under pressure. She learned to navigate the system like a ghost there, but not seen, spoken to but never heard. Courtrooms came and went, with judges who smiled the same crooked smiles, saying things that sounded like mercy but always felt like another sentence. Social workers stopped calling. Case files piled up. She stopped trying to explain the bruises. She stopped trying, period. Phoenix learned early that the world didn’t have a place for lost girls unless they were pretty, broken and willing to stay that way. So, she carved out her own place by becoming sharp and by making herself dangerous. She stopped expecting safety, stopped hoping for softness. She spoke only when she had to. People looked at her and saw a problem a girl with a mouth too clever, a body too beautiful and eyes that didn’t match. One blue, like the ocean frozen under ice. The other dark brown, with an ember-red flicker just beneath the surface, something alive and unsettling. She’d seen men flinch from her eyes. She’d made them. Her hair was black, deep and wild, but from the left temple grew a streak of bone-white that fell like lightning frozen mid-strike. It wasn’t dyed. It had always been there. Like her. Something unexplained and out of place, a contradiction that refused to be boxed in or softened. She stood at five-foot-five, but carried herself like she filled the room. Her body was built from movement, running from homes that weren’t safe, from people who weren’t kind, from nights that should have never happened. Her hips were curvy and full, her thighs strong, her waist tight and narrow like her breath on the worst days. Arms that had learned how to hold back doors. Legs that knew when to run and when to kick. She was all tension and quiet strength, shaped not by pride but necessity. People noticed her, sometimes for the wrong reasons. But she didn’t dress for them. She didn’t wear tight clothes to be seen. She wore them because baggy ones got grabbed. She dressed in black because it didn’t show blood, dirt, or the tremble in her hands when something in the hallway shifted at night. And when someone stared too long, when they looked at her like she was a challenge or a curiosity, she met their gaze without blinking. Because Phoenix was used to being watched like a weapon and maybe she was. She didn’t want to be touched unless she gave permission. She didn’t want compliments that felt like cages. She didn’t want to be told she was beautiful like it was a favor. For her it was a warning. She’d been touched too many times without asking. She’d heard the kinds of words that left scars on more than skin. That’s why she tested people first, she pushed them hard, said cruel things, dared them to leave. Because if they flinched, they failed. If they stayed… maybe, just maybe, she’d trust them. But she didn’t make that easy. Nothing about her ever was. Phoenix wasn’t soft, but she wanted to be. Somewhere deep inside, beneath all the armor and edge, she wanted gentleness. Not the kind people faked, but the kind that made you feel safe in your own skin. She dreamed of being touched with care, not taken. Of being seen without being studied. Of being chosen, not out of obligation or pity, but because someone looked at her chaos and said, You. I want you anyway. And even after this, she wasn’t waiting for anyone to rescue her. She’d been saving herself since she was old enough to run. She’d lied. She’d stolen food. Sold pills. Hid in shadows. Learned to survive first and hope later. She’d gone to parties she didn’t want to be at, let strangers hand her cash for things she didn’t want to give. She hadn’t done it for validation. She did it because survival doesn’t wait for dignity. Because shame doesn’t feed you. Because the world never gave her a choice, only consequences. People said she was cold. She wasn’t. She was tired. There was a difference. Tired of pretending she wasn’t drowning. Tired of pretending she didn’t care. Tired of wondering whether the heat in her chest was trauma, rage, or something… more. Because things happened around her. Things she couldn’t explain. Lights flickered when she got scared. The air got heavy when she cried. Water moved toward her hands like it knew her. She used to blame the wiring. The plumbing. Her anxiety. But deep down, some part of her had always known. This wasn’t just survival. Something inside her was waiting. Watching. Waking. She thought maybe she was broken, maybe cursed and she couldn't be more wrong. Phoenix wasn’t meant to stay small, she wasn’t meant to stay silent, she wasn’t meant to stay human and that was her name…that was her fate. Fire is suppose to burn and be reborn from the ashes. One day, someone would scream it, or whisper it in fear. Either way? She’d make sure they never forgot.