Yesterday dressed herself in layers.

Platelets donated.
Blood given freely.
Small pains,
      slow drips for a greater good.

I broke a sweat in the morning— (not the good kind)
                 head pounding,
           thoughts fracturing,

  pulse in my temples stealing breath from my words.

Still, you found a way through.
A quiet hum inside the static.
A name whispered between the beats. (—Mari—)

Then the tears—
     mine, for a friend gone too soon,
           for a small creature who purred her way

     through every hard day…
                            until she couldn’t.

The air's still thick,
    like the world’s holding its breath,
    waiting for sky to remember how to fall…

    like the whole week’s breathing through a straw.

But still—
    our teams line up, (3-4 yesterday)
        threads hold steady,
        texts hum between heartbeats.

Four games, four teams,
A little pulse in the middle of a long week.

Maybe we don’t hit every mark.
Not every pitch finds the strike zone.

But yesterday, we kept moving.
                  kept finding each other,
                  kept breathing.

                  even in the gaps,
                  even in the noise.

So on the days that have to be stitched together
          with a little blood, sweat, and tears—

          at least we know how to hold the thread.