Between Bruises & Blooms
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Death took some people without choice; this goodbye hurt differently because the person who left was still breathing beneath the same sky.
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After years of searching for home in other people’s arms, she realizes the place she kept rebuilding was herself.
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She never slept; morning simply found her standing at the edge of night while the sky bruised itself into gold.
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Morning arrives from the wrong side of insomnia, catching her awake as darkness packs itself away one pale color at a time.
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A little feral creature arrives with claws, teeth, and every reason not to trust hands—then slowly discovers what softness can mean.
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She hated the place while she lived there, yet memory still aches for its mountains, smoke-filled summers, and the person she was inside them.
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She knows darkness well enough to walk it with her eyes closed, which may be exactly why she is finally learning how to leave.
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When sleep would not come, she wrapped two tired daughters into a stroller and carried their exhaustion outside to meet the moon.
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Softness was never the same as harmlessness; roses have thorns, pretty things have teeth, and survival taught her how to use both.
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Two babies somehow create enough laundry for a village, leaving one tired mother at the base of a mountain made entirely of tiny clothes.
Between Bruises & Blooms 