There is a softness in the dark that feels almost like a return. A warm, enveloping space like being held in the womb, suspended in the creatrix void where everything is possible and nothing is yet demanded.

In this piece, I wanted to capture that fleeting moment before transformation, when the cocoon is still intact but already beginning to fracture. The cracks are there, the light is seeping in, and I know that soon I will have to leave, to spread my wings, to step into the inevitability of becoming.

But for now, I linger. I rest in the in-between, where darkness is not absence but presence thick, nurturing, alive. The light dances at the edges, teasing, reminding me of what’s to come. Yet I choose to savour this pause, this breath before emergence, this tender space where endings and beginnings overlap.

Poppies in the dark is about honouring that liminal moment. It is about allowing yourself to be held by the dark, even as it begins to split open. It is about finding beauty in the suspension, in the not-yet, in the fragile balance between safety and flight.