Stitched In Human Ways
Your smile was an appliqué
pressed onto the morning,
a bright patch hiding
the frayed places.
My thoughts ran in crooked backstitch,
looping around themselves,
unable to move cleanly forward.
We walked the bias of truth,
tilted, slanted, never quite straight,
held together only by fragile
binding of good intentions.
A memory spun inside of me,
a restless bobbin
winding and unwinding
a gold version of you.
The heart’s buttonhole opened
with a daring dart of hope,
but the ease we wanted never arrived.
Your silence became a facing,
turning inward,
while I tried to gather meaning
while you unraveled.
At the end, the moment’s hem frayed,
the day lost its nap,
and love itself became a seam ripper,
quietly undoing everything.