Between Bruises & Blooms

You left.

The fire didn’t.

It waited inside my ribs, patient as sunrise.

For a while I mistook it for grief.

Then I realized

grief does not write poems.

Grief does not rebuild gardens.

Grief does not keep choosing tomorrow.

No—

that was me.

Still standing.

Still becoming.

Still carrying an impossible amount of light for someone who once believed they had gone dark.

I am no longer waiting to be chosen.

I have become the flame that finds its own way home.