Between Bruises and Blooms

Yesterday,

I could carry
both of you
without shifting my weight.

Yesterday,

your fingers
wrapped around mine
like they were
learning the world
one heartbeat at a time.

Now you run
before I am ready,
laugh before I understand,
and somehow
the word baby
already feels
too small
to hold who you’ve become.

They say
time flies.

They’re wrong.

Time tiptoes.

It steals
one first bottle,
one first tooth,
one first step,
one first birthday—

until suddenly

at three in the morning,

I’m standing outside
two cribs,

realizing

I’m no longer
raising babies.

I’m raising
the little people

they’re becoming.

And somehow,

that is
the most beautiful
and heartbreaking thing

time has ever done.