Between Bruises & Blooms

They call you
the first medicine cat

like history
should make me
forgive you.

Like being important
means being right.

Like founding something
sacred
erases the damage
left behind.

It doesn't.

You can be
the beginning
of a tradition

and still be
the ending
of your children's home.

You can speak
with StarClan,

heal wounds,

read signs
in leaves
and stars,

and still fail
to recognize
the wound
you placed
inside your own kits.

That is the part
I cannot swallow.

You knew
how to mend bodies.

You knew
how to ease pain.

You knew
how to sit beside
the sick
and dying.

But somehow

when your own babies
were grieving,

you decided
the answer
was distance.

Different nests.

Different Clans.

Different lives.

Maybe history
calls you wise.

Maybe StarClan
calls you chosen.

I don't.

I call you
a grieving mother
who made
a terrible choice

and then watched
the forest
turn it
into tradition.