Between Bruises and Blooms

I thought
They’d check me,
Smile politely,
And send me home.

“I’ve just got some pressure,”
I said.

Pressure.

The kind that makes you
Call the hospital
From a curb
Outside a friend’s house
At three in the morning.

The nurses looked at me,
Then looked at each other.

“You’re five centimetres.”

Five centimetres?

No.
That couldn’t be right.

I hadn’t counted contractions.
I hadn’t breathed through waves of pain.
I hadn’t even realized
Labour had begun.

But my daughters had.

They were already
On their way to me.

Sometimes,
Life doesn’t knock politely.

Sometimes,
It arrives quietly,
Then changes everything
Before you even know
To be afraid.