Before you bloom, sometimes you break.

The Story

Not everything that breaks is broken forever.

There was a time I could not recognize myself.

Berlin was supposed to be different.
A beginning. A dream.
But instead, it became a mirror—showing me parts of myself I did not want to see.

I woke up in the same room every day.
Four walls. Noise I did not belong to.
People who did not know me, but still, I had to share space with them.
Yet the loudest noise was inside me.

I was crumbling in slow motion.
Not all at once.
But in pieces—small, invisible, silent.

The boy who used to dream big, who believed in freedom, in creating something meaningful—he was not there anymore.
In his place stood someone tired. Someone scared.
Someone who spoke to himself in words sharper than any knife.

“You won’t make it.”
“You’re not enough.”
“Why even try?”

I did not tell anyone.
Not my family. Not the people I love.
Because how do you say, “I’m losing” when you are supposed to be chasing a dream?

And so, I rotted.
Quietly.
Each day, something small inside me gave up.
A little less hope.
A little less light.

But in the darkest nights, there were flickers.
My brother—on the phone, across countries, across time zones.
His voice did not fix me.
But it reminded me I was not completely gone.

There were people who still saw something in me.
Even if I did not.

Maybe you must rot a little.
Let life break you in ways you did not ask for.
Feel the weight of your own doubts.
Sit in the silence of not knowing.

Because only then, only when you have touched that bottom, do you realize—

You can bloom.
Not despite the rot.
But because of it.

Rot is not just decay.
It is the space before growth.
It is proof that even when you feel like you have lost everything, something still waits beneath.

Something that can rise.
Something that still believes.

You are not broken.
You are breaking through.

And there is nothing more honest than that.

Why It Exists

Blizzzl believes that every breakdown carries the seed of becoming.
Rot is your mirror for those moments when you feel like your own worst enemy—and your quiet reminder that even decay can give way to growth.

This print is not about staying broken. It is about what comes after.

Artist’s Personal Note

“You can’t fight the darkness by hiding from it. But you can grow through it. This is for anyone who’s ever doubted—and still dared to hope.”
—Blizzzl