There’s a misconception that healing is soft —
that it whispers instead of roars,
that it’s all warm baths and moonlight journaling,
that peace descends like a dove and stays.
I’m here to tell you — it’s anything but.
Healing is fire and ash.
It’s the forge where you unmake yourself,
where old armor melts and the raw metal of who you are
is shaped again and again.
It’s the crow clawing her way out of the smoke,
feathers singed, heart still beating.
She doesn’t rise pristine —
she rises scorched, trembling, defiant.
There’s another lie too —
that once you heal, you are healed.
That one day you wake radiant and untouched,
as if pain can be erased by effort or time.
Wrong again.
Healing is not a destination; it’s a haunting.
It circles back like the crow at dusk,
testing your wings,
asking if you’ve learned how to stay steady in the wind.
Some days, healing is fire —
raging through the lies you told to survive.
Other days, it’s the quiet flicker of a candle
that refuses to go out, even in the storm.
It’s breaking apart and rebuilding.
It’s grief and grace coexisting.
It’s learning to breathe through the ache
and to love the ashes you came from.
So if your healing feels wild,
if it burns more than it soothes,
if you are rising and falling and rising again —
you’re not broken.
You’re becoming.
The crow still flies through the smoke.
The flame still burns in your chest.
This is what healing looks like.
Crow and Flame 