Lady Lazarus

Dying
Is an art, like everything else.
I do it exceptionally well.
— Sylvia Plath

I do not rise up from the ash.
rather, I crawl on splintered limbs,
sputtering and coughing and
baptized by soot. untwist my
gnarled spine, spit out my teeth.

resurrection is a parlor trick
with which I am well-acquainted.
I am a phoenix in the sense
of self-destruction, but I am not
reborn in illustrious flame.

the aftermath is a gift I did not
ask for. and I was only seventeen—
too soon, too soon. too young
to surrender myself to the pyre.
martyrdom doesn’t suit me.

I do not worship at the altar
of destruction, but I’ve been
known to strike a match or two.

Emma Conlon (she/her) is an emerging poet and a recent graduate of the University of Virginia. Her work is published or forthcoming in Eunoia Review, Pen & Pendulum, Merak Magazine, Red Noise Collective, Sweet Lit, and elsewhere. Her debut poetry collection, Changing of the Tides & Other Poems, was self-published in 2022. Find more of her work at emmaconlon.com.