Between Bruises & Blooms

There is a photograph
no one ever took.

A woman,
cross-legged on her bed,
phone glowing in one hand,
her father’s voice
still echoing from the other.

Outside,
the world continued
like ordinary Tuesday evenings do.

Inside,
a screen became a weapon.

Message after message,
trying to carve pieces
from a woman
who had already buried a daughter,
already packed boxes,
already signed papers,
already learned
that love
does not always survive
the people holding it.

He told her
she wasn’t enough.

As though she hadn’t spent years
becoming everything
her children needed.

He told her
she was broken.

As though grief
hadn’t already introduced itself
by name.

He told her
she deserved
to lose everything.

But he didn’t know

she had already survived
the worst sentence
a mother can hear.

The phone kept vibrating.

She kept breathing.

Sometimes
that’s the bravest thing
anyone ever does.