Nicole Johnson

She wakes in fragments,
salt still crusted in the corners of her eyes.
Milk-damp shirt,
feet padded like prayer across splintered hardwood.

The elder one wakes with the sun,
rummaging through cotton ruins
outfits worn once, exiled by instinct.
He speaks in sparks,
thoughts racing out of his mouth
faster than the world can catch.

Quick to prowl,
quick to pout,
he tears through tenderness like paper
and yet cries at cartoons,
asks if the moon ever gets lonely.

He storms when she asks for stillness,
calls her cruel in a voice just old enough to wound.
She says nothing.
Only flinches inward,
where the wound goes
when there is no room to show it.

The smaller one barrels joy-first into morning,
laughing like it’s his only job.
He does not walk,
he conquers space.
Every table leg, every shoelace,
a frontier to be chewed, climbed,
or claimed.

There is no applause.
Only superhero capes on doorknobs,
half-eaten apples in corners,
and the scent of baby skin
folded into the day like incense.
Only the ache in her hips,
the lull in her spine,
where softness used to rest
before she traded it for presence.

And when the house finally empties
just her, the walls,
and a list of things she swore she’d do
she sits.
She lets the silence sprawl.
She forgets what she asked for.
She remembers what she gave.

She does not speak.
She just stays.
Like all the wild things before her.
Still and holy.
Built for the storm.