SEED

Like a seed, cut me open with a dirty razor, and let the blood spill out— thick, dark, a river running through the cracks, the root of something bitter growing deep, where the light can’t reach. There is no tenderness in this wound, only the sharp sting of truth— that I am not the bloom I once believed, but the earth beneath the surface, broken, hiding what it cannot grow. You took what was soft and tore it apart, your hands stained with my blood, but the blood was always mine, wasn’t it? I was never the flower, never the thing to be cherished, but the seed, buried in the soil of my own fears, growing twisted roots beneath the skin, growing silent in the shadows. You planted me there, but you never cared for the rain, never watered the soil, never sought to see what might have bloomed. I lie here, a husk of what could have been, drenched in the weight of what you’ve taken, what you’ve carved out of me with your dirty hands, your words sharp like broken glass. But still, I am the seed, still I grow, in the dark places, in the quiet rage of my own soul.