*One year anniversary poem

One year ago…5

I laid on an operating table with a broken heart.

Literally.

They didn’t know if I’d make it.

Some of them probably hoped I wouldn’t.

I was 89 pounds.

Fragile.

Exhausted.

Gone, almost.

They cut me open to save what was left of me.

But what they couldn’t see was the fight still in my soul.

They saw an addict.

They saw a heart failure patient.

They saw someone to be pitied.

But they didn’t see me.

They didn’t see the mother who still needed to hold her babies.

The woman who still had purpose.

The warrior who hadn’t even begun to rise.

But I did.

I rose.

Today, I stand here 130 pounds strong.

Muscles back.

Memory sharp.

Spirit fierce.

And a heart that beats with fire.

I am amazing.

I watched my children graduate.

I watched them smile.

I watched myself come back from the edge of death.

I woke up in the middle of surgery and STILL didn’t give up.

I’ve died more times than I can count.

On tables.

In silence.

In grief.

In guilt.

In moments no one even noticed I was slipping away.

But every time I died, I found a reason to rise.

That’s why they call me Phoenix.

This journey has been drenched in pain.

The kind that rips your soul apart when no one’s watching.

The kind of loneliness that no words can fix.

The kind of shame that makes you want to disappear.

But I stayed.

I fought.

I bled.

I healed.

To everyone reading this…

Maybe you feel lost.

Maybe you’ve messed up more than people can forgive.

Maybe your diagnosis, your addiction, your scars… feel louder than your worth.

But if you’re breathing,

if you’re here,

you still have time.

You still have purpose.

You are not your pain. You are what rises from it.

Don’t let anyone write your ending before you’ve lived your miracle.

Because I lived mine.

And I’m just getting started.

-Phoenix