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James Barry’s “Lye” (1789–1865)

They said your life was built on lye,

ash‑water steeped in secrecy,

a caustic wash that burned away

the name you could not carry.

With lye you scoured the wards,

scrubbed filth from wounds,

boiled linens white as bone,

and cut a child from death’s embrace—

the first to live by such a hand.

But lye is more than cleansing:

it strips, it scars, it remakes.

So too your days—

a body remade by will,

a truth dissolved in silence,

a self preserved in fire.

And when they found you gone,

they called it a lie,

not seeing how lye purifies,

how it burns only to reveal

what surely endured beneath.

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