You hear the voice
screaming for clemency,
not realising it is
your own.

You see the ego parading
its vainglorious plumage,
unready to renounce
its deceptive deadly habit.

You smell the fear,
its festering miasma,
unwilling to exorcise
its virulent existence.

But,
it is not,
until you feel
the flames lick,
not until you smell
the acridity of your own
burning flesh,
that then, and, only then
will you kneel in homage,
in gratitude, to witness
your phoenix rise.