2

Two.

Too big, this love, to not break my heart.

Two small legs, twiddling fast fast fast through the grass through the leaves through space like the wind itself.

Two years of breast-feeding, crying, adrenalin rising, successful diaper changing, exhaling, feeding, scrambling to the next and the next and the next, falling exhausted into bed, teeth barely brushed, and rinse, wash, repeat.

Too much, the way my heart rises in my chest when I meet her trickster eyes, the way her cry untethers my soul, the way I cannot fathom the life I might have lived without her, the way I would never want that life.

Too little, can I give her, from this limited body and fallible mind, to a child who deserves perfection.

Two years.

Two with this wonder arrived at our doorstep from the stars, destroyed by it, transformed by it, reborn by it, by her, by us, by our figuring-this-life-out-together.

Two is not just a number, but a miracle in motion.