The Dark Realm
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Before you close your eyes, set down the conversations you keep replaying. Lay tomorrow’s worries beside your shoes. They will still be there when morning comes. You were never meant to carry every broken promise, every unanswered question, every impossible expectation through the night. Even the strongest trees release their leaves. Even the moon lets…
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There is a house that cannot be found on any map. You arrive there only after giving up the need to know what comes next. Hekate waits where the roads divide, not to choose for you, but to ask, “Which version of yourself are you finally ready to become?” The night offers no answer. Only…
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By nine o’clock, the world has grown quiet enough to hear the things we spent all day trying to outrun. The smiles are folded away with the laundry. The brave face sits beside an untouched cup of tea. There is a loneliness that only visits after sunset— when no one is asking how you’re doing…
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The church still stands. White paint peeling like old skin, its steeple piercing a sky too blue to remember mourning. They say no one worships here anymore. But I know better. The crows keep the choir. The wind recites forgotten scripture through cracked boards, and every groan of old timber is another hymn the living…
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I left the candle burningon the porch. Not for luck. For whoeverstill called this place home. The bowl glowedbetween my fingerslike a tiny harvest moon. Each exhaleslipped beneath the door. Each inhalefelt borrowed. The trees stood perfectly still. No crickets. No birds. Even the windseemed unwillingto interruptwhatever conversationthe dead were havinginside those walls. I never…
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Tonight, I did not ask the cards to tell me the future. I asked them to tell me where I had forgotten to listen. The first card arrived draped in moonlight. The High Priestess. She did not speak loudly. She simply rested between two pillars and reminded me that truth has never needed to raise…
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There is a chapelwhere no prayers survive. Only ravens. Only ivycurling around broken stonelike fingers refusingto let go. I light a candle anyway. Not for God. For the womenwho were called wickedsimply becausethey refusedto burn quietly. The flame flickers. Somewhere beyond the trees,something ancientsmiles.
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I blamed the deckfor telling mewhat I already knew. I shuffled harder. Cut the cards again. Asked different questions,hoping fatemight grow tiredof repeating itself. Instead— The Towerfell. The Moonwatched. Deathsmiled gently,as if to say, “Not everything endingis dying.” The cardsnever predictedmy future. They simply refusedto let me lieabout my present.
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She spread the cardsacross the tablelike constellationswaiting to be named. No crystal ball. No smoky room. Just worn corners,cold coffee,and a womanlearningto trust herself again. Each cardheld less prophecythan permission. Permissionto rest. To leave. To grieve. To become. The oraclenever whisperedwhat tomorrow held. It only reminded herthat todaywas still hersto choose.
Between Bruises and Blooms 