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# Burn
- URL: https://dianaludwick.com/burn/
- Published: 2026-06-11T16:15:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-06-11T16:15:00.000Z
- Description: “Burn,” a reflection on being "honored" with the Grace Under Fire award during a prior marriage. Written Thursday, June 11 poem 162 in a series of 365 poems written by Diana Ludwick in 2026. Photo: Night sky and Flames, by Diana Ludwick (c) 2026.
- Author: Diana Ludwick
- Tags: 2026 Poetry Challenge, Homage, Long form musings, Poems, Reminiscing, Crossed Legs, Crosshairs, Endurance Suffering, Good Girl, Grace Under Fire, Grim and Prim, Growl, June, Ladylike, Marital Dissolution, Medal, Olympic Sport, Podium, The Original Vessel, Trauma, Warning, Women, #Migrated-1792872215677, #wp, #wp-post, #Import 2026-10-24 20:03

Sitting across from me in a chair,   
her spindly legs   
cross around one another,   
twice.  
Once at the knee,   
once around the ankles  
in that awkward way   
that partially distracted me   
from my ample troubles.  
  
She looked at me,   
quietly processing my last update.   
As I dabbed at my right eye   
with a palm-moist tissue,  
she shifted   
and put her pen down   
on her notepad.  
She broke the stale silence   
in her small dimly lit beige office.  
  
“You should list on your resume,   
*‘grace under fire’* as a skill.”  
“Because, *truly,*   
you navigate devastation   
*so well*.”  
  
At the time I took her   
professional assessment   
as a compliment.  
Gold star!   
Excellent Job!  
*Good girl.*  
You are suffering   
in the most *ladylike* way!   
  
Looking back,   
more than a dozen years later,  
I wonder:   
should I have heeded   
her praise as dire warning?  
  
That messaging   
may well have caught me   
in the crosshairs   
of a much longer trap.  
  
Perhaps acquiescing   
and silent grief in the shadow   
of a looming malevolence   
is not the honorable thing.   
  
What I needed in that moment   
was someone   
to shake my shoulders and say,   
“*This is not right.*   
Go. Be safe.”   
Protect yourself,   
take up space,   
find your voice.  
  
Sometimes the right move   
is to bear one’s teeth,   
to growl,   
to defend,   
to assert worth,  
to claw out of the ditch.  
  
Perhaps rage is essential.  
Endurance suffering   
should not be awarded.  
  
Swallowing distress  
is not a long distance   
Olympic sport.  
  
Despite the practice,   
and the miles,   
there’s no medal   
nor podium.  
  
The hollowness   
and shrinking   
that comes from years   
of being ground down   
should be identified   
as the trauma it is.  
  
And yet,   
here I am,   
still grim and prim   
under the flames.  
  
The root cause   
of this anguish  
should be flushed   
from the system  
as urgently   
as caustic acids   
splashed in the eye  
in organic chemistry lab,   
which is to say  
Immediately,   
thoroughly,   
and with support.  
  
Women,   
the original vessel,   
of life,   
of strife.   
We know too much,   
we hold too much.  
  
While we've become  
so comfortable  
sitting serenely   
in the fire,  
perhaps we should   
let   
it   
burn.