What does it mean, really?
To come back—
And to come back wrong, at that?

Is such a thing even possible?
You’re still you, in the end.

Changed, of course.
Grave dirt under your nails,
Ash lingering on your tongue.

The anger overtakes,
Burning.
Burning.
Burning.

But you’re still you.
All you’ve ever done is burn bright, after all.
You’re just as you were.
Just as you are.
Just as you always will be.

It’s the people around you that have changed.

You’re not a little bird anymore—
No hollow bones,
No sitting pretty in the nest,
No flight.
No magic.

You grow up.
You never got to grow up.
Both are true,
Neither are true,
And you are set ablaze.

You’re a memory, a shroud, an echo.
And memories don’t grow.
They don’t change.
They don’t taste blood and ash and earth.

But you have— even if you are still you.
A blurry photograph, a fractured glass case,
A pedestal, a shrine, a memorial.
Those aren’t you.

You’re still you.

But there’s no space for you in a memory, is there?
Unyielding, unchanging as they are.
If you don’t fit the image, then—

Then you came back wrong, didn’t you?
That’s what they say.

You’re not a songbird anymore.
You can’t sing—
You don’t have a voice.

But you can still make them listen.
You’ve always burned bright, after all.

You’re still you, in the end.