“Bloomed Before You Blossomed”
by Adena M’lynn You bloomed before you blossomed— a rare flower, carrying the wisdom of a woman long before the world called you grown. They saw petals, but I saw roots— roots that reached down past centuries, drinking from rivers your feet had never touched, pulling in stories your mouth had never spoken, but your heart already knew. You were ten and you held your chin like the sky owed you answers. You walked through rooms as if you’d been there before, as if every chair knew the weight of your body, as if every clock ticked to the rhythm of your pulse. You bloomed too early, but not because the sun loved you more— because life bent down, shoved the soil from your shoulders, and whispered, grow. You learned to read between the sighs of grown-ups, to carry the weight of what wasn’t said, to hold the world steady when your own knees were shaking. Bloomed before you blossomed, you learned that beauty can come even when it’s dragged out of the dark. That sometimes petals open not in...