Words Make A Way Through Fire
Healing After My Brother’s Suicide
Words Make a Way through Fire is an intimate, courageous memoir of a woman shattered by witnessing her eldest brother’s horrific suicide when she was a teenager. The book traces her creative journey of recovery and healing with poetry as a constant companion.
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Audiobook
The audiobook version of my memoir Words Make a Way Through Fire, told through poems, narrative prose and journal entries, has just been released (October 2026). The book serves as a deep case study of how I used poetry and journal writing over the course of decades as I sought to live creatively with witnessing my brother David's suicide as a teenager. The audiobook infuses a playful soundscape into the story. For example, embedded within the 40 poems are original responses from an accomplished cellist. The journal entries are accompanied by the faint sound of pen upon paper.
Enjoy this audio preview of a poem read by me with magical cello response. The poem tells the story of my amazement as a six-year-old learning her letters at school, writing my first poem, and discovering that words are alive and language makes thoughts real. Perhaps hearing this poem will surface your memories of learning the letters and sounds of your first language. If so, I invite you to write down the specifics of what you recall.
Cyra Sweet Dumitru, MA, PPM
Cyra is a published poet, instructor of poetry, writing coach, former medical writer, and one of four certified practitioners of poetic medicine living in Texas.
Her poems have appeared on the walls of San Antonio’s City Hall, on city buses, been spoken on national public radio, appeared in city newspapers and national literary journals, and been read in dozens of bookstores and museums.
My Story
At age five I learned how to swim the waves of ocean,
and knew water with its currents and tides as home.
At age six I wrote my first poem, birthing a singing bird
and knew words flowing from my inner voice as home.
At age sixteen I was shattered by my brother’s self-harm.
Part of me witnessed while part of me fled and hid.
At age sixteen, on this same night, Voice spoke to me,
promised healing, and ran with me toward the fire.
Throughout all ages since, the sacred wells of poetry and water
hold, recompose and enhance me, make me loving and strong.
Thanks be to Voice. Thanks be to Poetry. Thanks be to Water.
rooted in muddy depths, lily rises slowly, opens strong and true