On an related note, who wants to help me figure out how to hem and tailor my Goodwill haul...
I grab at it again, the thread trailing from the edge of my sleeve. It’s found it’s way out, tickling my wrist and playing with my fingers like it wants to hold my hand, but when I try to catch the end, it slips right out of reach. This red thread stares back at me, tangled and taunting, and damn it, I pulled it farther, it’s gotten longer with every attempt to pluck it out.
We have a kind of performance, the thread and I, but the genre depends on where you’re standing. As I look down and take a pair of scissors to the delicate string, I see nothing but tragedy and horror. A crack sounds, bam! I’m sure it must be done, this time the villain’s won, but like the hot breath of laughter, I feel the hero’s return. Quite comically, the scissors are slain in two and the little red thread, atop a podium of blue veins, looks quite proudly at my disdain.
It’s a crime of passion, and though I know it’s better left alone, I can’t help but wrap tight circles around my finger. Make it match, my skin and the colored barrier that prevents my blood flow. Well, that’s poetic, I think to myself. A physical manifestation of my emotional state, a visual example of a heart too full and heavy. Encased, suppressed, I wonder how long I can go until I have to let up and that’s always when I know it’s been long enough. How am I jealous of skin that can right itself so quickly? Something deeper in my chest is never quite so willing.
I’m drawn away, pulled by the mundane requirements of everyday, and it’s gotten easier to forget who I take with me when I get dressed every morning. But there, right under my sleeve, she waits until I’m out and about, sprawled on a friend’s couch, scrolling through an endless feed, dotting the pavement with restless feet. There, the not-so-phantom feeling returns.
It’s always a thread, but she’s knotted herself up in more than the fabric. Stupid things, really, the emoji she overuses, the shoes she’s worn down to their treads, the song she hates that keeps getting stuck in my head. I look down and she’s spilling out, daring me to catch her even though she knows this is a spool with no end. And I’m a fool, so without thought, I grab at her again.
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