Between Bruises & Blooms

The southern breeze found me
before I found myself.

It carried no grand prophecy,
no map,
no promise that tomorrow
would be easier.

Instead, it brushed against my skin
like an old friend
who already knew
every scar beneath my sleeves.

“You have mistaken surviving
for living,”
it whispered.

“The flowers do not apologize
for blooming after a wildfire.
Neither should you.”

So I stood still.

I let the wind untangle
the names I had wrapped around my pain.

I let it carry away
every version of me
that existed only
to make someone else comfortable.

When it finally moved on,

it left no footprints—

only the quiet certainty
that healing
isn’t the absence of storms.

It’s learning
to become the breeze
that carries someone else
back to themselves.