I once heard... About the joan of arcs among us

I once heard that Joan of Arc didn't burn at the stake and die.

I heard she was beaten by her mother, abused by her father, thrown into rooms and told to shut up. I heard she was victim to drugs and the streets and all the dark creatures that may roam it. I heard she died a thousand times while on her feet and burned a million more while she lay under the temporary cover of her duvet, tears trailing her cheeks in persistent lines that would've left grooves if that was possible.

I heard how her love overflowed onto pavements and into gutters nevertheless.

Books hid her gaze from the world, occupying it with words that twirled and swirled around her into a shell of another time and place and that was all she needed.
I heard how the tops of trees brought her closer to the sky and further from the ground and that made her sing and sing and sing
perhaps birds would adopt her and she could fly away from here
I heard how she built her armour from scraps of disappointment, hinges of steel determination, bolts of fear, and plates of pure survival. Piece by piece she would find them on her path from somewhere to anywhere, not looking back except in quick glances over her shoulder.

Her tongue became a sword she whet with time, using it to keep unwanted confrontations at bay, and beguiling who she pleased to with its gleen and glimmer. And she would go so many times misunderstood by many. But she knew it was just another strength to her armor. So be it.

the tree tops were still her fort

I heard of Joan of arc who never gave up on her heart, and although locked into her armor, it found nooks and crannies to pour out of not asking for anything back.
Sometimes it fell through the cracks, got stepped on, but being the saint was, she did not lash out in revenge or draw her sword in anger at anyone, as deserving as the situation was.

she simply added another layer to her armor, and moved on.


She, like many like her, was a joan of arc. Not for merely suffering. But for taking that stake and making it a ticket to somewhere new, somewhere different, till the flames caught up again. She never complained nearly as much as she should.
And of course, she was never canonised.

She saw the whisky glass (there was no better way to douse the flames, to thicken the shield, to add to the armor) half full, not half empty.

Yet as beautiful from ugly as that was: the dousing drink, the armor, the sword, the tree, and the path, there was always a wound that would sting with every mouthful of whiskey, a moment the armor would crumple into paper, an instance the sword would dull, a flame that would engulf the fort tree, a night with no stars to light the path forward and away.

Her "wisdom" was gained unfortunately, but gained nonetheless, and that demanded a level of respect, even among the cynical, or the doubtful or the apathetic. She would be on top of that tree, yelling "I SHALL NOT SUCCUMB", even when the fires of the hell that was her world were lapping at her toes. A life like hers would make one tough as diamond.

Even if it was in the rough

If you were one of her "folk" she would stand in the faces of dragons for you, many of which she had slain before, or seen their tails in the dark. She would stand firm with her flesh sword and her scrap armor.
All you had to do was genuinely care, and she would reciprocate ten folds without a question. That, she did not fear.

Love, did not spook her.

It was what beckoned her.

I once heard about the living martyrs that were not canonised or written about and who walk among us. The Joan of Arcs of our time.

Always martyrs never saints,
I meet them, everyday