Cracked Pavement Bloom

The chipped mug, lukewarm tea, another grey morning.
The kind that seeps into your bones, settles there.
Like the dust on old photographs, the ones I can't bear to look at.
Too much laughter frozen in time, ghosts in bright sweaters.

Remember her laugh? Like wind chimes in a summer breeze.
Now it's just the static hum of the refrigerator.
Empty spaces echo louder than any symphony.

I walk the same streets, the same route we always took.
Past the bakery, the park, the little bookstore.
Each familiar corner a sharp shard of memory.
Cutting me open, letting the grief leak out.

They say time heals everything. Lies. Empty promises.
It just smooths the edges, makes the pain a dull ache,
Something you learn to live with, like a bad back.

But then, today, something shifted.
Walking past the abandoned lot, the one with the broken fence,
I saw it.

A single dandelion, pushing through cracked pavement.
Yellow head defiant, reaching for the sun.

A splash of color in a world of grey.

It wasn't much, just a weed, really.
But it stopped me. Made me breathe.
Reminded me that even in the ugliest places,
Life finds a way.

A tiny crack of light in the darkness.

Maybe hope isn't some grand, sweeping gesture.
Maybe it's just that dandelion.
Maybe it's the stubborn refusal to give up,
even when everything feels broken.

Maybe it's the quiet strength to keep walking,
to keep breathing,
to keep looking for the small moments of beauty.

Like the unexpected kindness of a stranger,
the warmth of the sun on my face,
the sound of birds singing in the early morning.

Small things, yes, but enough.
Enough to keep going.
Enough to believe that maybe, just maybe,
I can bloom again too.

Not in the way I was before,
changed, scarred, weathered.
But stronger, somehow.
Like that dandelion, rooted in the cracks,
reaching for the light.

Ready to face another grey morning,
knowing that even in the darkness,
there's always the possibility of yellow.
Always the possibility of bloom.