Motherhood
-
all four of them are finally dreaming, and the house,for once,has stopped asking things of me. no cups to fill.no blankets kicked away.no little voices callingmomfrom somewhere down the hall. just silence—soft,strange,almost holy. and me,with a headache bloomingbehind my eyeslike a stormthat waited politelyuntil everyone elsewas safe. I should sleep. I know I should. but…
-
I used to thinkhome was a place— four walls,a locked door,laundry folded badlyon the back of the couch,toys multiplying overnightlike some tiny plastic curse. But I know better now. Home is this. A boy with messy hairand a grin too big for his faceholding his baby sisterlike she has always belongedinside the circle of his…
-
For so long,home felt like a sentencemissing half its words. Beds madefor children sleeping somewhere else. Shoes by the doorthat did not belongto every pair of feetmy heart was counting. I kept listeningfor voices that weren’t there. Kept imaginingthe sound of all of themunder one roof again— the arguing,the laughing,the sudden crashfrom another roomfollowed byI’m…
-
I know overwhelmed. I have worn it like another layer of skin. But even from my knees, I would have stayed.
-
At three in the morning, two wide-awake babies and one exhausted mother prove that motherhood does not care what the clock says.
-
Uncertainty turns silence into sirens and thoughts into sharp little things, forcing the body to survive futures that have not happened.
-
The compass has not changed, but the road home has been bent, leaving a mother to wait while every room still points toward her boys.
-
She scrubs, folds, and prepares every room as though order could bargain with the universe for the footsteps she is waiting to hear.
-
After years of searching for home in other people’s arms, she realizes the place she kept rebuilding was herself.
-
Morning arrives from the wrong side of insomnia, catching her awake as darkness packs itself away one pale color at a time.
Between Bruises & Blooms 