Between Bruises & Blooms

They wanted a hero
they could put on a poster—

clean hands,
pretty smile,
a conscience polished
until it reflected
whatever they wanted to see.

They got me instead.

I was never built
for saving everyone.

Some people
deserve to watch
their kingdoms burn.

They call me Wildfire
because I don’t knock
before I enter,

because I learned
a locked door
usually means
someone powerful
has something to hide.

Pharma calls it medicine.

I call it blood
with a barcode.

They count their profits
in quiet hospital rooms,
in mothers begging
for one more treatment,
in bodies becoming numbers
on somebody else’s spreadsheet.

And somehow
I’m the villain?

Cute.

I don’t wear a halo.

I wear the smoke
of every bridge
I burned on purpose.

I don’t follow orders.

I follow names—

the forgotten,
the buried,
the ones whose stories
were bought
and filed away.

I keep them
beneath my tongue
like matches.

Strike one.

Strike two.

Watch me become
the consequence
they thought money
could outrun.

Heroes save the world.

I’m not interested
in the whole damn world.

Just the pieces of it
they poisoned.

And when they hear
my boots coming
through the smoke,

when their perfect empire
starts glowing orange
at the edges—

they’ll finally understand:

Wildfire
was never coming
to rescue them.

She was coming
to settle the score.