Indigo Blossoms

I bloom indigo

from the deepest chambers of my heart,

where the moonlight lingers before it brushes my face,

long after dawn has forgotten my name,

where ancient forests breathe

without asking permission,

where ravens carry omens

mistaken for prayers.

This is where I was born.

Not from the sunlight,

nor from fields of gold,

but from the quiet places

the world is too afraid to enter.

The places where grief

learns compassion.

Where solitude

becomes sanctuary.

Where broken things

discover they were never really broken at all,

only growing roots

beneath the surface.

Still,

you meet me only once.

You count the silver beads around my neck.

Judge the weight of my boots.

Shrink at the ink beneath my eyes.

Wince at the indigo stitched into my skin like twilight.

You decide

you already know me.

You mistake mystery

for misery.

You mistake silence

for hatred.

You mistake the night

for something that wishes you harm.

Tell me,

when did darkness

become guilt?

When did the moon

need to defend itself

against the morning?

When did forests

become frightening

simply because they refused

to bloom beneath the sun, but under the twilight instead?

I have walked beside shadows

long enough to know

they are not monsters.

Some shadows

are only trees

stretching toward the evening.

Some darkness

is only the earth

holding seeds

before they are ready to bloom.

And I,

I have always bloomed

from those depths.

Not despite them.

Because of them.

My soul chases indigo

the way rivers chases the sea.

Not as surrender,

but as belonging.

Do not mistake

the color of my spirit

for the measure of my heart.

The gentlest hands

can wear black lace.

The fiercest kindness

can speak in whispers.

Mercy

has never owned

a single shade.

I have held strangers

through storms

they believed

they would never survive.

I have carried grief

that was never mine.

I have loved

with hands that never thought to ask

to be understood first.

Yet somehow

the world believes

my eyeliner speaks louder

than my compassion.

How strange.

You search my appearance

for evidence,

while my soul

has been blooming

the entire time.

I bloom indigo.

Not because I worship darkness,

but because I have experienced it

what survives within it.

I know the sky

just before morning.

I know the ocean

where sunlight cannot reach.

I know the wildflowers

that dare to bloom

between forgotten stones.

I am not the absence of light.

I am proof

that even the deepest colors

can still cradle

an entire constellation.