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by Baby Girl Hayes (Author), Samantha R. Chapman (Editor)
I chose the name Phoenix Rising because it tells the truth about who I am and what I've lived through. A phoenix is the only creature in mythology that doesn't just survive destruction - it resurrects from it. It rises from ashes that were never supposed to hold life again.
That's my story. That's my becoming.
I also identify deeply with Phoenix from X-Men. Before she ever transformed, she was already powerful - gifted, chosen, carrying something inside her that the world couldn't always understand. But after she sacrificed herself in the most devastating way to save the people she loved, she didn't return as the same version of herself. She came back as Phoenix: all power, all purpose, all unstoppable force.
That resonates with me because I know what it feels like to die in ways people can't see. I know what it means to lose everything, to burn down to nothing, and still rise again - not weaker, not smaller, but transformed.
My return wasn't a comeback. It was an evolution.
Phoenix Rising is the name that honors that truth. It is the declaration that I didn't just survive - I ascended. It is the reminder that my power didn't come from what broke me, but from who I became after the breaking.
This book is my rising. My fire. My return.
My proof that ashes are not the end - they are the beginning.
