Between Bruises & Blooms

So let me
get this straight.

You fell in love.

You had a mate.

You had kits.

You knew
what it felt like
to curl beside someone
and call them yours.

You knew
what it was
to carry life,

to give birth,

to look down
at four tiny faces
and know

they came
from you
and someone
you loved.

Then Micah died.

You struggled.

You broke.

You gave your kits away.

And somehow
the lesson you carried
from all of that
was not

medicine cats
need help.

Not

mothers deserve support.

Not

perhaps one cat
should not be expected
to heal an entire Clan
while raising four kits
alone.

No.

Your answer was

never again.

No medicine cat
will have a mate.

No medicine cat
will have kits.

No one after me
will even be allowed
to try.

Excuse me?

You got
your love story.

You got
his warmth
beside you.

You got
to know
what your kits
looked like.

You got
to hear them breathe.

And then
you turned
your heartbreak
into law.

You took
your own inability
to carry both

and decided
no one else
could possibly
carry them either.

That is not wisdom.

That is pain
writing policy.

That is grief
building a cage

and calling it
tradition.

Maybe another
medicine cat
would have managed.

Maybe another Clan
would have helped.

Maybe another mother
would have chosen
differently.

We will never know.

Because you
had a mate
and kits

and then decided

everyone after you

deserved neither.