Between Bruises and Blooms

They’ll always have an opinion.

Too loud.
Too quiet.
Too broken.
Too healed.
Too honest.
Too much.

They’ll call art a waste
because they cannot see
the pieces of my soul
pressed between the lines.

They’ll ask why it doesn’t rhyme,
as though pain
has ever followed
someone else’s rules.

They’ll laugh at the words
that kept me breathing,
dismiss the pages
that carried me
when nothing else could.

They’ll mistake healing
for attention,
creation
for performance,
survival
for “online bullshit.”

But flowers
never stop blooming
because someone
calls them weeds.

The ocean
never apologizes
for being too deep
for shallow eyes.

And I won’t shrink
to fit inside
someone else’s understanding.

Because these poems
were never written
for those determined
not to feel them.

They were written
for the people
who have sat awake
at three in the morning,
searching for proof
that someone else
had survived this too.

If my words
reach even one trembling heart,
then every opinion
left behind
was worth it.