Between Bruises & Blooms

I stopped asking the moon
to bring back
what the night had taken.

I had spent too many evenings
beneath her,

palms open,

offering prayers
I didn’t believe in
to a sky
that had never promised
to answer.

Bring them back.

Bring me back.

Bring back the girl
who didn’t know
how quickly a life
could split itself

into before
and after.

Bring back the years
I lost surviving.

The people
whose names still ache
when they pass
through my mouth.

The love
I mistook for forever.

The pieces of myself
I left scattered
in bedrooms,
hospital hallways,
empty houses,

and the arms
of people
who swore
they would stay.

Every night,

the moon returned.

Whole.

Bright.

Unapologetic.

And I hated her
a little for it.

How dare you
come back

when everything I loved
learned how to disappear?

How dare you wax
and wane
and call it a cycle

when some things
only leave once?

But eventually,

I understood.

The moon
was never a resurrection.

She was a witness.

She couldn’t return
the dead.

Couldn’t rewind
the years.

Couldn’t put innocence
back into hands
that had already learned
how tightly
they needed to hold on.

She could only sit
above me

while I learned
to carry absence
without letting it
become my entire name.

So tonight,

I ask her for nothing.

I sit beneath her
with empty palms

and let them
stay empty.

Some things
were taken.

Some things
will never return.

And still—

the night
has not taken
everything.

I am here.

Breathing.

Becoming.

Watching the moon
rise without mistaking her
for a promise.

And for the first time,

that is enough.