Between Bruises & Blooms

She was never afraid of the crows.

While the village nailed shut its windows
and whispered prayers against bad omens,
she stood barefoot in abandoned fields,
her pockets full of feathers
and her hair tangled with the wind.

The crows knew her name.

Not the one her mother gave her,
but the older one—
the one spoken by forgotten forests,
where every tree remembers
the women who refused to burn.

They perched upon her shoulders
like fragments of midnight,
watching the world
with eyes polished from centuries
of witnessing grief.

People called her cursed.

They said death followed her footsteps.

But death never belonged to her.

She simply refused
to look away from it.

She buried unloved things.

Broken dolls.
Wilted flowers.
Letters no one answered.
The names of children
the world forgot too quickly.

Every grave she tended
grew black roses.

Every sorrow she carried
returned as another crow.

Soon the sky itself
became her cloak.

When she walked,
the birds followed,
a living storm of wings,
their cries sounding less like warnings
and more like forgotten hymns.

Those who feared her
crossed the street.

Those who needed her
always found their way home.

Because the Crow Girl
did not steal souls.

She gathered the lonely ones
until they remembered
they had never truly been alone.

And on moonless nights,
when the forest grows quiet enough
to hear old ghosts breathing,

you may glimpse her
standing among the pines—

a silhouette woven
from feathers,
shadow,
and silence.

If a single crow
leaves the murder
to land beside you,

do not run.

It has not come
to foretell your ending.

It has come
to remind you

that even darkness
keeps faithful messengers.