I'm spun black, caught in my own mad web. For watching my own beautiful children grow stuffs my heart in a jar.

Everyday, my eyes drink in their small miracles. Skin stretching over bones. Minds flying. Fingers carving letters on paper. My lids fluttering from the magic. Until they sleep -- and I push my face greedily into their hair. Breathe deeply, searching for babyness -- round faces, rolled thighs, black, shining eyes. Reality slaps without mercy as I stand in line at the grocery store, a baby-in-bucket-mother next-in-line. A pregnant-bellied-woman washing her hands next to me at the airport. White heat-rising, my web pulls tight. I see my selfish self clearly.

My twoandneveranymore children. A phrase someone I adore used the day she realized her two, were indeed her last. For some it's oneandneveranymore. Others four. And some, none. No matter the number, the day appears. And defines - carving lines thick and blue as veins. And brings with it either a wave of relief, or wall of grief. And the wonder that our days are indeed racing past us like rain. Mytwoandneveranymore. I swallow the words like stones. Mytwoandneveranymore. Mytwoandneveranymore. My heart pushes against its own walls, sharp and thin.

I push the dull ache down to my toes, only to feel it rise bit-by-bit all day, then settle in my heart as I lie my head down at night. The realness of their growth, a blue flame, singeing my skin. I'm ablaze from the sheer heat of needing to be a young mom again. Of wanting their babyness back.

Twoandneveranymore.

I mend with the truth. Long zagging stitches. Filling the holes from the inside out - pushing-into, stitching-up, guarding the raw spaces. And let their smallness slip away. I ink the smell, the feel, the memory of baby deep inside - a ball of white light hidden under my skin. It glows. Its warmth, a reminder to be grateful.

My twoandneveranymore. I am getting there. One day at a time.