Crystals in the Wound

I used to think the breaking was the end,

a quiet final act, curtains drawn,

marble dust on the floor where I fell.

But the wound glittered—

shards rearranged themselves into something holy.

You asked how it ended.

I said, it didn’t.

It calcified into memory,

into light refracted through regret,

a love preserved in quartz and silence.

There are ghosts in the garden still,

whispering about the girl who reached for more.

They call her reckless,

say she traded peace for pain—

but what is peace without knowing?

What is love without loss?

I think of Eve sometimes,

standing barefoot in the dawn,

apple juice on her tongue,

truth blooming behind her teeth.

Maybe she didn’t fall at all.

Maybe she rose,

and the world just wasn’t ready

for a woman who wanted more than perfection.

And I have swallowed my own fruit,

tasted the bitter, the sweet, the ache.

I have loved like a prayer unanswered,

burned in my own becoming.

I have seen the ribs of my ruin

grow crystal, not scar.

So call it sin if you must,

but I’ll call it knowing.

Call it ruin, I’ll call it rebirth.

Because sometimes the only way to survive

is to make your ruins shine.