The Labyrinth of Living Iron

 

I walked the path with petals red,

A spiral traced by hands long dead.

Their whispers stirred the gravel’s dust,

As rose and footstep met in trust.

Each bloom I laid, a breath, a vow—

To call the strength into me now.

To draw up fire from root and bone,

To claim this vessel as my own.

The dusk hung low, the light grew thin,

Yet power surged and pulsed within.

The center called—I knelt, I wept,

For all the blood my body kept.

No temple walls, no priestess choir,

Just me and stone and fading fire.

My voice became the only spell,

My truth the torch, my fear the well.

I lit no flame but soul and sight,

And drank the silence of the night.

In stillness there, I made my plea:

Let iron rise and set me free.

Let every cell remember flame,

Let marrow sing my sacred name.

Let Persephone’s hand extend—

The Underworld does not pretend.

I rose anew, then traced the bend,

The path I walked now held an end.

But not before I sought the tree

Whose fruits had fed and watched o’er me.

The Jamaican cherry, silent, wise,

Stood veiled in leaves beneath the skies.

I whispered to her blooming skin:

Let health and strength take root within.

Then home I went, the ritual done,

But not complete till all was one.

A sachet red, a garnet deep—

The spell to stir what once did sleep.

I laid it down at Persephone’s feet,

Where life and death in silence meet.

The red flame rose—a gift returned—

The candle from the day I burned.

Initiate, and now again,

I rise through blood, through bone, through pain.

High magic lives in what we claim—

The body is the altar’s flame.

So may the forge within me glow,

With every crimson pulse I know.

Let iron rise, let red renew,

For I am spell, and I am true.