Pele

I think Pele must be the kind of goddess
who does not knock.

She arrives as heat in the walls,
as a tremor beneath your coffee cup,
as a red line appearing
where the earth has decided
it will no longer hold everything in.

They say she lives in the volcano,
but I think she lives in the moment
a woman decides
she cannot keep swallowing fire.

She is not gentle.
She is not careful.
She does not ask who will be inconvenienced
by her becoming.

She burns forests.
She makes new land.
She destroys homes.
She builds islands.

This is the part they don’t like to talk about
when they make goddesses soft and kind and safe.

Pele is creation
the way lightning is creation,
the way breaking is sometimes
the only way something new
can enter the world.

I think if you met her
she would not comfort you.

She would hand you a match
and say,
There is something inside you
you are pretending not to know about.

Burn that first.

And when the lava finally reaches the sea,
when all that rage meets all that grief,
when the fire hits the water
and the whole world hisses and screams,

new land forms.

Black.
Raw.
Still warm.

A place
you can stand
that did not exist before
you became
who you were.