Between Bruises and Blooms

Some days
the poems arrive every hour,
lined up like obedient birds
waiting on a wire.

Other days,

there are bottles to wash,
little hands reaching for me,
laundry climbing into mountains,
floors asking to be swept,
dogs asking to go outside,
and tiny voices reminding me
that they only get one childhood.

So if the page grows quiet,
it isn’t because the words have left.

They’re tucked into the basket of clean clothes,
hidden beneath scattered toys,
caught between sleepy cuddles
and dishes drying on the rack.

I don’t write because life has stopped.

I write because life happened.

Every poem you read here
was borrowed from the moments
that first belonged to my family.

Thank you for waiting.

The words always find their way back to you.

They just have to pass
through home
before they reach the page.