Between Bruises & Blooms

By six o’clock,

the house begins to exhale.

The dishes are quieter, the toys stay where they landed for more than a minute, and the sunlight stretches itself across the floor like an old golden cat.

The coffee has long gone cold.

The cigarette burns slower now, not because life has settled, but because I’ve learned to steal peace one breath at a time.

Outside, the birds argue over supper, the trees whisper to whoever still believes they have stories to tell, and somewhere, the moon is already waiting for its turn.

Inside, tiny hands still reach for me.

Tiny voices still call “Mama.”

There are bottles to wash, laundry to fold, diapers to change, and a hundred little moments that will disappear before I realize they’ve become memories.

Six o’clock isn’t the end of the day.

It’s the gentle reminder

that love rarely arrives with applause.

Most often,

it looks like warming another bottle, answering another little voice, and choosing, again and again,

to stay present for this beautifully ordinary life.