Between Bruises and Blooms

She wasn’t waiting to be rescued.

She wasn’t crying for someone to take her home.

She smelled like warm blankets, full food bowls, and windowsills worn smooth by afternoon naps.

A tortoiseshell shadow beneath a streetlight, wearing the confidence of a cat who knows exactly where she belongs.

Still…

she stopped.

Long enough to lean into my hand, to borrow a few quiet scratches from a stranger walking two sleepy babies through the dark.

Then, without ceremony, she slipped away between the houses, back toward the life that had taught her people can be gentle.

Some meetings aren’t meant to last.

They’re only meant to remind us that kindness can be exchanged without keeping what we