Between Bruises and Blooms

Three in the morning,

and the house holds its breath.

Two little voices rise from darkened rooms, calling into the quiet until even the moon seems too tired to listen.

The coffee is cold from yesterday.

The cigarette waits untouched.

The poem I meant to finish is still only half a heartbeat.

Motherhood doesn’t ask what time it is.

It simply whispers,

“They need you.”

So I wait.

Not because I have all the answers,

but because sometimes love sounds like silence—

like staying just outside the door,

trusting that two tiny hearts are learning how to find sleep without losing the certainty

that I am still here.

Tomorrow,

I’ll wear the shadows beneath my eyes like another badge no one pins on mothers.

And when the sun asks why I look so tired,

I’ll smile,

thinking of two little girls

who will never remember

the night

their mama loved them

quietly

from the other side of the door.