Between Bruises and Blooms

The world is still pretending to sleep,
while I sit with the creatures
who never learned the difference
between night and morning.

The kettle hums.
The babies sigh in their dreams.
A cigarette burns itself shorter
between tired fingers.

Once, there was another ritual.

A bowl packed with green prayers.
A lighter’s soft click.
Smoke curling toward the ceiling
like secrets asking not to be judged.

It never fixed me.

It never stitched together grief,
never signed court papers,
never filled empty bedrooms
or brought back the people
I’ve buried inside my ribs.

But for a little while…

It turned the volume down.

Just enough to hear myself breathe.

There is no shame in missing
the medicine that once carried you
through nights you weren’t sure
you would survive.

Sometimes healing
looks like quitting.

Sometimes healing
looks like remembering
without returning.

So at 4:20 in the morning,
I raise nothing
except another cup of coffee
to every version of myself—

the girl with the bong,
the woman with the babies,
the poet with ink-stained hands,
all of us
trying our best
to make it
until sunrise.