Between Bruises & Blooms

I used to think changing
meant betraying
the woman I had been.

As if every version of me
deserved a permanent room
inside my bones.

Even the ones
who only knew how to survive.

Even the ones
who mistook endurance
for love.

Even the ones
who kept their hands wrapped
around dead things
because letting go
felt too much like losing.

But I am learning—

a flower does not apologize
for leaving the seed behind.

The moon does not mourn
every shape
she no longer wears.

And I do not owe
my old wounds
a lifetime of becoming
around them.

So let me change.

Let me shed
what has grown too tight.

Let me become unfamiliar
to the people
who only knew me hurting.

Let my roots wander.
Let my branches reach
toward places
I once believed
were not meant for me.

I am not abandoning
who I was.

I am carrying her forward—

softly,
gratefully—

into the woman
she survived long enough
for me to become.