Between Bruises & Blooms

I used to think
home was a place—

four walls,
a locked door,
laundry folded badly
on the back of the couch,
toys multiplying overnight
like some tiny plastic curse.

But I know better now.

Home is this.

A boy with messy hair
and a grin too big for his face
holding his baby sister
like she has always belonged
inside the circle of his arms.

Her tiny fist
curled into his shirt.

Her eyes finding him
and knowing, somehow—

mine.

My brother.
My safe place.
My person
I have been waiting to grow beside.

And God,

there were so many nights
I stood inside these rooms
and felt the empty spaces
where my children should have been.

So many mornings
I woke to silence
and hated it.

So much waiting.

So much fighting.

So much learning
that a mother’s heart
can keep beating
even when pieces of it
are scattered across miles.

But tonight,

there are shoes on the floor.

There are toys everywhere.

Someone is laughing
from another room.

A baby squeals.

Her brother laughs back.

And the walls
do not feel empty anymore.

My children are here.

All this beautiful noise,
all these bodies
taking up space,
all these hands reaching
for one another—

this is the prayer
I kept whispering
when nobody was listening.

This is the answer.

Not perfect.

Not quiet.

Not clean.

Better.

Alive.

My babies
under one roof.

My heart
finally returned
to its body.

And if anyone ever asks me
what home looks like,

I will show them this—

a brother
holding his sister,

both of them smiling,

and a mother
behind the camera
trying not to cry.