Christen Foster Poet Free verse

Red Lotus

I was not born in still water.?I was born in the thick of it—?in the elbow-deep mud,?in the silt of almost and not-yet’s,?in the dark where names dissolve.

They told me?nothing beautiful?comes from murk.

But they never met a lotus.
They never watched a red one?push its fist through the surface of a bruised pond?and open like a mouth?finally done swallowing silence.

I am that bloom.
Red like the pulse in your wrist.?
Red like a warning.?Red like love that refuses to whisper.
Do you know what it takes?to rise without shame?from the bottom?

It takes remembering?that mud is not a coffin—?it is a cradle.

That pressure is not punishment—?it is rehearsal.
That the water above you?is not a ceiling—?it is a mirror?waiting to learn your face.

I have learned the language of roots.?How they tangle.?How they anchor.?How they refuse to apologize?for reaching.

Beneath the surface?I am a riot of becoming—?threaded veins drinking from decay,?making sugar from sorrow,?alchemy in slow motion.

?Petals like a thousand small revolutions?curving outward.
They see the bloom?and call it miracle.
They do not see the months?of blind faith.
?The cold nights pressed against doubt.?The way I leaned toward a sun?I could not yet see.
But I felt it.

Light is a rumor?roots believe in.
And one morning—?without trumpet, without permission—?I broke the surface.
Not gently.?Not politely.
I arrived.

Water slipped from my shoulders.?The world blinked.?And I spread—?not to be admired,?but to exist fully.
Because red is not just color—?it is declaration.

It says:?I have been through the under.?I have kissed the sediment.?I have made peace with the unseen.
And still—?I rise.

So when you find yourself?knee-deep in the thick of it,?when your reflection looks like a question?you’re afraid to answer,
remember this:

The pond does not get to decide?what grows from it.
You do.
Be the root that grips the sediment 
of life’s challenges.?Be the stem that insists on still standing.?
Be the red lotus—?unashamed of the mud,
You grew up in.
?unafraid of the water,?unapologetic in your opening.
And when you rise,?rise all the way.

Let them call you impossible.?Let them call you too much.?Let them call you miracle.
You will know the truth:
?that even in the deepest dark,?there is something inside you?is already reaching?for light.

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