Broken words line these open seams
A bleeding heart rests in the palm of hope
You struggle to keep your hold on the ground
All your stitches are open doors
Ready to take in a lonely soul
At the expense of everything that was yours

Staring in a mirror. Again
It makes me feel worse just to see

I braided my hair so neatly
Now it's falling apart at the seams

There's a comparison there
Let's not look into it

If I stick pins in
Tie up all the loose ends again

It'll look neater, sure
As long as you don't look too close

Cause there's a glittering metal barricade
Of a halfhearted hairstyle I tried to save

underneath the seams of fate,
tell me, which do you regret more;
the day you met me?
or the day you left?

IA

Loose Knit
by Michael R. Burch

She blesses the needle,
fetches fine red stitches,
criss-crossing, embroidering dreams
in the delicate fabric.

And if her hand jerks and twitches in puppet-like fits,
she tells herself
reality is not as threadbare as it seems ...

that a little more darning may gather loose seams.

She weaves an unraveling tapestry
of fatigue and remorse and pain; ...
only the nervously pecking needle
****** her to motion, again and again.

Published by The Chariton Review, Penumbra, Black Bear Review, and Triplopia. Keywords/Tags: Addiction, needle, veins, stitches, red, blood, ******, dreams, hallucinations, seams, darning, tapestry