{"id":1864,"date":"2026-06-11T16:15:00","date_gmt":"2026-06-11T16:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/?p=1864"},"modified":"2026-07-05T13:19:02","modified_gmt":"2026-07-05T13:19:02","slug":"burn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/?p=1864","title":{"rendered":"Burn"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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.

\u201cYou should list on your resume, 
\u2018grace under fire\u2019 <\/em>as a skill.\u201d
\u201cBecause, truly, <\/em>
you navigate devastation 
so well<\/em>.\u201d

At the time I took her 
professional assessment 
as a compliment.
Gold star! 
Excellent Job!
Good girl.<\/em>
You are suffering 
in the most ladylike<\/em> 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, 
\u201cThis is not right. <\/em>
Go. Be safe.\u201d 
Protect yourself, 
take up space, 
find your voice.

Sometimes the right move 
is to bear one\u2019s 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\u2019s 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.<\/pre>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cBurn,\u201d 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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1931,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,290,4,2,666],"tags":[1487,1492,1488,1490,1485,1498,1494,1288,1491,1489,1497,1495,1496,1499,1030,1493,70],"class_list":["post-1864","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-2026-poetry-challenge","category-homage","category-long-form-musings","category-poems","category-reminiscing","tag-crossed-legs","tag-crosshairs","tag-endurance-suffering","tag-good-girl","tag-grace-under-fire","tag-grim-and-prim","tag-growl","tag-june","tag-ladylike","tag-marital-dissolution","tag-medal","tag-olympic-sport","tag-podium","tag-the-original-vessel","tag-trauma","tag-warning","tag-women"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1864","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1864"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1864\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2054,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1864\/revisions\/2054"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1931"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}