I Turned My Back to the Flames

I became The Woman Who Ran Into The Fire.

People wanted to touch the scars.

They wanted to ask what it felt like.

They wanted to hear the story at their dinner parties and shake their heads and feel something for an evening and go home.

I was a monument to them, Hannah, a thing that had happened, a story that belonged to the whole town.

And I did not want to be a monument.

I wanted to be a woman.