The wound opens

not with grace,

but with a raw,

unapologetic

truth of being split.

A red thread unwinds

from a hidden spool

beneath the skin,

and stains the floor

with a language

older than speech.

Pain arrives first,

as it always does

a teacher without tact,

slapping red chalk on the blackboard

of your ribs.

But look

the colour glows.

A bloom.

A warning.

A becoming.

From this breach,

art limps forward

not clean,

not pretty,

but honest.

Scars sketch maps

of survival.

Bruises are

the petals of things

refusing to die quietly.

You bled.

And in the red,

the world learned

something new

about light.