Between Bruises & Blooms

They told me

the past is behind you.

As if memory obeyed the same roads our feet do.

Mine still lingers in empty courtrooms, hospital hallways, houses where love learned to wear another face, and the names I still whisper when no one is listening.

But every morning, the sun rises without asking permission from yesterday.

The wildflowers never apologize for blooming where fires once burned.

Perhaps healing isn’t forgetting.

Perhaps it is carrying every bruise like a pocket full of seeds, scattering them anyway, trusting that somewhere ahead there is still enough light for something beautiful to grow.

So today, I leave the gate unlocked.

Not for the ghosts.

For whatever gentle thing finds its way through it next.