Interpersonal String


I've lived my whole life
In cowering, petrified fear
Of being alone.
Of being left at the curbside, unwanted.
Of being abandoned by everyone I love
For the hateful crime
That is being, in all my capacity,
this cursed self.

That is to say
I've always felt the strings
The infinite connections
That interlace,
delicately,
and wildly,
and beautifully
Between people.

All my life I have seen
Red ribbon weave
in and out
in and out
in and out
Of those around me,
Holding them together
With an indescribable magic.

That is to say,
I had one string.
One thread that held me close to the crowd
One thread that kept me near the magic,
Pulled taut, tight, straining-
to bear the weight
of my flaws, of my sins, of my damned being
Somehow surviving as they grew more distant, further away-

For fourteen years it strained.
The single red ribbon, forming cuts
forming frayed threads,
the twine slowly unraveling
coming
u n d o n e.

One gloomy June night
with only the last fibre connected,
clinging painfully to tender cuticle
ripping out cell, tissue, nail-
I put blade to red ribbon,
and it snapped.
limp.
gone.

regret.

but time passed.
skin healed.
cells rebuilt.
I found new string,
lying discarded on floors,
in second-hand shops,
in unfinished looms,
in knitting needles,
in outreached hands-
and suddenly, 

I felt relief.

I went back to my bedside table
and opened the locked drawer
pulled out the first red ribbon
and let the birds carry it away.

it felt like...
catharsis.

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