Creative Works Manifesto: The Pederson Phoenix poem

The darkness filled the air; I felt my body trembling.

​It was not the fear of an ending, but the shock of a single, undeniable fact: the old me is dead and gone. That self—the one defined by silence, by compromise, and by carrying the psychological dread of previous relationships—was shed like ash.

​I was reborn into a phoenix, not through a gentle awakening, but through the crucible of that searing pain.

​The weight of loss was the fuel. The years of carrying the burdens of others was the fire. Now, the old anchors are dissolved. For the first time, my creations are not whispered confessions or shadowed compromises; they are a direct broadcast.

​I no longer carry the dread of being silenced. Now, my voice will be heard. This space is the sound.