Between Bruises & Blooms

I dream of angels
with clean hands
and mouths full of mercy,

but morning always finds me
with smoke in my lungs
and old ghosts
sleeping at the foot of my bed.

I have begged heaven
to leave the porch light on,
just once,
so I could remember
what it feels like
to be expected somewhere.

Instead,
the dark knows my name.

It curls beside me
like a lover
who has memorized
every place I bruise.

The demons here
do not have horns.

They wear familiar faces.
They speak in voices
I once trusted.
They know which doors
I forget to lock
inside myself.

Still,
I keep dreaming of wings.

Maybe that is the cruelest part—
that something in me
still believes
there is a softness
beyond all this teeth.

That somewhere
an angel is listening,
not because I am holy,
but because I survived
everything that tried
to make me cruel.

So I sleep
among demons
and dream toward heaven,

stubborn as a candle
burning in a graveyard,

small,
shaking,
but refusing
to go out.