Between Bruises & Blooms

People ask
if I cried.

The truth is—

I laughed.

Not because
any of it was funny.

Because hatred
becomes predictable
when you’ve heard it enough.

The words changed.

The feeling didn’t.

I laughed
because tears
had already been spent
on hospital rooms,
empty nurseries,
court documents,
and children
who deserved better
than grown-up wars.

There wasn’t anything left
for a stranger
to mistake as weakness.

So I laughed.

Then I put my phone down.

Years later,

I still remember
the sound
of that silence.