Between Bruises & Blooms

Imagine grieving
someone
for years.

Learning
to speak of them
in past tense.

Watching your mother
become harder
around the shape
of his absence.

Watching your sister
carry the same ghost.

Building an entire life
around
he is gone.

Then walking
into a room

and finding
your dead brother
breathing.

Brennan.

Alive.

Not a memory.

Not a grave.

Not another name
Violet had learned
to survive without.

Alive.

And there is
no clean emotion
for that.

Relief
does not arrive alone.

It drags anger
behind it.

Confusion.

Betrayal.

Every birthday
he missed.

Every night
they mourned him.

Every moment
someone could have said

he is still here.

Because resurrection
sounds beautiful

until you realize

someone had to live
inside the grief
while the dead
were secretly
still breathing.

And maybe
that is why
his return
hit so hard.

Violet did not
simply get
her brother back.

She had to discover
that one of the deepest
wounds
of her childhood

had been built
around a lie.