She Rises in Splinters and Light

She carries two skins
one kissed by sunlit earth,
one inked with midnight's hush.
Each morning, she maps the seam
where they stitch together,
and breathes-fierce, unbroken.

Her childhood was a house
with broken boards,
echoing with footsteps
of someone long gone.
She learned to dance
on splinters,
and each scar is a star
etched into her backbone.

She cradles grief in one arm-
the ghost of her infant
wrapped in silken memory-
and in the other, her daughter's small hand,
knuckles white with questions.
She rock them both into dawn,
whispering hope into their dreams.

Her wedding ring is a promise
and a challenge:
to build a home
where two souls weld their edges
into something radiant.
She lays down old ghosts
at the altar of her faith,
prays through trembling lips
for grace to stand.

She tastes the ache of longing-
a cold whiskey that calls her name,
a sharp blade's false lullaby-
but she holds fast to the promise
of resurrection in her soul.
Every urge she battles
becomes a prayer,
folded into wings
that lift her past despair.

She bears the world's gaze-
questions of belonging,
the heavy scales of her hues-
and turns them into armor,
knitting wisdom from each stare.
Her body is her manifesto:
a testament that complexity
is its own kind of beauty.

In the hush between heartbeat and breath,
she finds gratitude
for the broken chapters-
they taught her how to read stars
in the dark.
Hope is her inheritance,
woven from hardship
and the gospel of survival.

She rises each day
a mosaic of grief and laughter,
faith and feral joy,
her story a river
carving canyons through stone.
She rises, unstoppable,
and calls he daughter home
into the warmth of tomorrow.