[𝐏𝐚𝐫𝐭 1]

I sat before my glass one day,

And conjured up a vision bare -

Unlike the aspects glad and gay,

That erst were found reflected there –

The vision of a woman, wild

With more than womanly despair.

~'The Other Side of A Mirror' by Mary Elizabeth Coleridge

***

She was dying.

It was a bittersweet feeling, truly, to be dying.

As the world burned around her,

it seemed only appropriate for her to go up in flames as well.

With each replay of a song,

are not the notes played before disappearing into the void

to bring light to the notes unheard?

With each turning page,

are not the words in your mind erased

to make room for future sentences?

It was the way of nature.

Life and death.
For each first breath, there is always a last.

But, like many other endings,
she hadn't known hers was so near.

Just as she came into the world wrapped in warmth,
bathed in fire was the way she'd leave.

Stormi inhaled one final breath.
And screamed.