Between Bruises & Blooms

Some monsters get handcuffs.

Some get courtrooms,
cells,
a number where their name used to be.

And some
walk out the fucking door.

Twenty years later,
I still remember the boy
nobody could save
because grown men had money,
lawyers,
and enough silence
to bury the truth alive.

Billy Tripley walked.

The detectives knew.
We knew.

But knowing
has never been the same thing
as proving.

So let the years pass.

Let him grow comfortable.
Let him believe
everyone forgot.

Let him think
the file gathered dust
until even the ghosts
stopped asking for justice.

Then open it.

Put his name
back beneath fluorescent lights.

Let another survivor speak.

Let one forgotten piece of evidence
finally learn how to scream.

Let Benson
look across that table
with twenty years
of unfinished anger
behind her eyes.

And bring Stabler home.

Because some cases
do not end
when the credits roll.

Some promises
wait decades
to be kept.

And some monsters
deserve to spend
twenty years believing
they escaped—

just to hear
the lock click
behind them
at last.