i wish bougainvilleas wept rust instead of color
i wish fear brushed more shoulders than it missed
and the emptiness spoke in a silence too familiar to be strange

i wish eyes didn’t flinch from what it is
i wish, more often than not, people saw things as they were
not softer, not kinder, just as they are

i wish life had been easier to some, and harder to others,
just so we’d stop pretending fairness ever had a say

i wish someone had named it all earlier
the ache, the quiet, the not-enough-ness of being here

maybe then we’d carry it better
maybe then we’d know that some things only bruise, and never bloom
maybe then we’d stop waiting for wounds to turn into flowers