Between Bruises & Blooms

I did not wake for the sunrise.

I never slept.

The night simply ran out of places to hide me.

I watched darkness thin at the edges, watched the sky bruise itself peach and gold,

as if morning had been bleeding light behind the trees all along.

Coffee began somewhere behind me.

Cats moved through the house wearing bells like tiny ghosts announcing themselves to the dawn.

And there I stood—

tired enough to feel hollow,

watching the sun push its way between rooftops and branches,

throwing gold across everything I had spent the night trying to survive.

There is something cruel about a beautiful morning when you haven’t slept.

Something tender, too.

Because the world does not ask whether you are ready to begin again.

It simply rises.

And sometimes,

so do you.