07/30/2026
Funeral Pyre —Leslie Karpinski
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I gathered the woman I used to be with reverent hands.
The fearful one.
The obedient one.
The one who mistook survival for love,
And silence for peace.
I washed her in cedar and rainwater.
Crowned her with wilted thorns.
Wrapped her in all the roles that never belonged to her.
Then I carried her to an ancient pyre,
Where the Old Gods have always listened without speaking.
The forest held its breath.
The wolves did not howl.
Even the ravens watched as I laid her upon the waiting wood.
“Take her,” I whispered.
“She has suffered enough.”
“Accept this offering, and return to me what pain could never create.”
The match was only a formality.
The fire knew her name.
It devoured every apology she had ever swallowed.
Every hand she held that only knew how to tighten into a fist.
Every prayer she uttered asking strangers to love her instead of herself.
The flames climbed
Like sacred serpents,
Their tongues licking the heavens
Until the smoke became scripture.
The Gods did not answer with words.
They answered with ash.
When the fire finally grew quiet,
I knelt before its remains.
I gathered the ashes into my palms,
Black as fertile soil,
Warm as a heartbeat returning after a long winter.
With them, I did not sculpt another warrior.
I had grown weary of surviving.
Instead,
I shaped a woman whose heart could bloom without asking permission.
A woman whose love would never again be mistaken for a sacrifice.
The Gods watched as breath entered her lungs.
She opened her eyes.
Not innocent.
Not untouched.
Consecrated.
She carries smoke where others carry perfume.
She wears embers where others wear jewels.
She remembers every flame that tried to consume her,
Yet she walks toward love without bowing to fear.
For this was never a funeral.
It was a covenant.
I offered the woman who believed she had to bleed to be worthy.
And the Old Gods, in all their terrible mercy,
Returned someone who finally understands
That love is not an altar demanding flesh.
It is a sacred fire giving back every piece of you that was burned away.
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