Between Thorns and Light

I move through a garden of unquiet things,

where vines clutch at my ankles,

where bees hum warnings

only I can hear.

The soil remembers every shadow,

and some days it feels

as if I am only made of thorns.

Yet in this restless ground,

something unexpected bloomed.

a friend’s laughter, soft and steady,

that grew into a flame.

Five years of seasons,

roots weaving through my cracks,

showing me that even in poisoned earth,

flowers can rise.

Still, the fog follows me.

It coils around my chest,

a gray tide that whispers,

What if this too is lost?

What if the bloom withers,

the light goes out?

My mind rehearses grief

long before it arrives.

But then.

a lighthouse on the horizon.

He stands unmoved in the storm,

a beam that cuts through

the anxious tide.

When I stumble in the garden,

he steadies my hands;

when the fog grows thick,

his glow calls me back.

Love does not erase the thorns,

nor chase away the fog entirely.

But it offers me a place to rest,

a way through the noise,

a reminder that my roots

are not broken...

they are learning to grow

toward the light.

And perhaps that is enough:

to carry my shadows,

to walk through my storms,

and still,

find blooming,

find beacon,

find home.