Between Bruises & Blooms

I have made mistakes
with both hands.

Built homes
inside people
who were already burning.

Stayed too long.
Left too late.
Loved things
that only knew
how to wound me.

I have spoken from anger,
bled on people
who did not cut me,
mistaken survival
for permission
to become sharp.

There are versions of me
I am not proud of.

I will not bury that truth
beneath pretty words
and call it healing.

But I will not
drag her corpse
behind me forever, either.

She was learning.

Sometimes badly.
Sometimes loudly.
Sometimes with fire
in both fists.

But she was learning.

And every ruin
left something behind—

a boundary,
a scar,
a warning,
a softer way
to hold the next thing
I love.

So I gather my mistakes
like broken glass
from the floor.

Not to bleed from them again.

Not to pretend
they were beautiful.

But to remember
where I shattered,

and how carefully
I learned
to become whole.