#unraveling
I ache for the weight of his hands,
his gentle conquest, my weary surrender.
The clasp undone, a silent unlocking,
and I, frail as dusk, lean into him,
his chest a steadfast haven of warmth.
Fingers trace the curve of my shoulders,
slipping straps cascade like autumn leaves,
an ending, a beginning, all at once.
His palms cradle me as if I am fragile,
a vessel brimming with quiet holiness.
Each slow circle of his thumbs awakens,
the soft rise, the quiet swell,
and I sigh, drawn beyond fatigue,
into the calm of his knowing touch.
His breath spills against my cheek,
words melting into my hair, unheard
but understood in the trembling silence:
"You are mine; I'll not let go."
The hush deepens; the world recedes.
Our bodies thread with unseen bonds.
I live only in the space of this,
the boundless gift of being undone.
2d ago
Jun 2, 2026 at 12:58 AM UTC
They told her it would slide past,
stay obedient
to the dry half of the state.
But storms don’t listen,
neither does she,
so she drove.
Rain knifing sideways,
taking the road with it.
I was upstairs waiting,
lights low, bed turned down,
wanting her hips, her command,
that winter-bright authority she wears
without apology.
She was coming for me,
her desire as wild and misdirected
as the weather clawing at the highway.
Wine still wet on her mouth,
twigs caught in her hair,
the careful heels of a woman past fifty
hitting every flooded seam,
garbage lids rolling in the street,
plastic bags pinned to palms.
the world already tilted
and she was driving straight into it.
The lot was empty,
bright sign flickering like a dying star.
No familiar cars, no doorman,
just a clerk blinking at her
as if she’d dragged the storm inside.
She went to the bar first.
That single eye of hurricane blue
ripping across the screen,
a storm grown hard
over weeks of warm water.
Rivers swollen.
Houses gutted clean.
A road split like a country losing patience.
She finished her glass, got another,
moved too fast, caught a chair,
dragged a sleeve through someone’s fries
and kept going.
The hallway swayed with her.
Leaves tangled in her hair.
Her skin hot, pulsing.
That voicemail rising again—
her granddaughter’s voice, small but steady.
Hi Nana.
Two years old and already drifting
further than she could follow.
At the Function Room door
she heard laughter,
the sound of people safe from weather.
Not her people.
Not her party.
Still she stepped inside,
her own storm closing the distance.
Faces turned.
A hand lifted, uncertain.
Elizabeth raised her empty glass,
like something pulled from the edge
after the water receded.
Silk blouse soaked through,
pearls cold against her neck.
It’s me, she said.
It’s Elizabeth.
The room went still.
The man by the bar tightened,
eyes narrowing as if to read a label
long since worn off the bottle.
Who is Elizabeth?
Dec 4, 2025
Dec 4, 2025 at 2:10 PM UTC
I know that there was a line that I sewn upon my skin
Thread made of emotions that I couldn’t hold on to
They slipped and slid and came out of my grasp
And if I tried to lock them away, they’d easily undo the clasp
I sit at a wheel, my finger at a thorn,
Spinning roses, and flowers, and threads for toys
If I can create something, something to be kept,
Would I someday find these things again and learn to accept?
Or would the thread someday fade and unwind behind the scenes
Undoing in the corners, ripping the seams
Things like these, I know, weren’t meant to last forever
They were meant to be loved, cared for, watched, and maintained.
But if I cannot move myself from this bed,
And catch the hands of the monster speaking in my head
Would I be able to learn how to thread the eye of the needle
So I could learn to love again?
Sep 10, 2025
Sep 10, 2025 at 11:47 AM UTC
I am the Pisces, suffocating beneath the weight of my own sorrow.
You watch as I fight against waves that crush the will from my bones,
A fish whose scales are heavy with despair,
Whose heart is a shattered thing, lost in the vast, unforgiving deep.
Each breath I take is a revolt against this abyss,
But each breath is a futile attempt to resist the inevitable.
You call my name, beg me to stay—
But the current is merciless, pulling me into the blackened void.
I swim in circles, drowning in a silence that devours,
As the water fills my lungs with its cold, endless ache.
The world above is a distant, forgotten dream,
One I can no longer reach, no longer want.
I am the Pisces, swallowed whole by my own darkness,
A soul unraveling beneath the surface.
Your hands cannot break the tide,
For I have already surrendered.
It is too late. The ocean has claimed me.
Mar 14, 2025
Mar 14, 2025 at 12:22 PM UTC
You hear it, soft at first,
A whisper in the night,
A fluttering breath on your ear,
A wish that won’t take flight.
_Love me,
Love me._
The pulse quickens,
The shadows grow longer,
Each moment stretching
Like time has forgotten itself.
_Love me,
Love me,
Love me._
It clings like the air,
A taste on your tongue,
Unspoken, yet loud enough to drown.
The silence thickens—
Can you hear it?
_Love me,
Love me,
Love me,
Love me._
It’s all that exists now,
A cage you can’t escape,
The need spirals deeper,
Faster, tighter,
_Love me.
Love me.
Love me.
Love me,
Love me._
The walls close in,
The words no longer hold weight,
Just a chant,
A prayer,
A broken record.
_Love me.
Love me.
Love me.
Love me.
Love me.
Love me._
___Love me?___
Mar 3, 2025
Mar 3, 2025 at 12:55 PM UTC
I am bubbling, as the soup I stir on the stove
Quick with anger, only I know dwells
Quick with the tempered fury of a wrinkled brow
Quiet the damper, let the billows out
Dam is flooded, I'm what's left.
Who is today when fury quickens
In mind, or conquered day by day
Simmering still, the soup is ready
I lay still the doubts of today
Oct 16, 2024
Oct 16, 2024 at 8:48 PM UTC
and your words unravel me
like the silken strands you were woven from
Jun 5, 2018
Jun 5, 2018 at 4:40 PM UTC
The weathervane slept high above with a lolling head.
Clouds were holidaying excessively in Spain.
Sun was lost in a haze after chain smoking cooling towers.
A lethargic wind, moseying low with cat-like whiskers,
I hear it complain “I’m tired” in child-like whispers.
My hands are sweat-sore with callouses
And salty enough to summon the call of gulls in numbers;
I find shade, imagining myself as a cartoon Huck Finn.
When I put dry grass between cracked lips and think of dustbowls
In a zoetrope of sun-stroke, I vanish through my buttonholes.
This is now where one would rise, wake or come to.
Nothing I recognise, else the world is enveloped in storms.
I strain my sight, blink repeatedly to force myself awake,
The angels are listening, I hear wheezing, see fingers in my dreams
Gripping tightly to milk thistle stars, bursting at the seams.
Amongst the angels, whispering too! Did the stars imprison you?
Free-spirit like mother, but I slept our childhood through
Sustained by knowledge gleaned from canteen floors—
My eyes feel somehow sharp, heavy, like spears more than eyes;
I thought I saw the weathervane spinning madly, unraveling the skies!
Nobody talks about the weather.
There is a good chance of wrought nerves.
This is a time of stillness and dwelling on doorsteps,
In doorways where death sits among us, resting his eyes,
An end to the ration that was harmless reminiscence
As memories go up in the heat like celluloid;
Now the stars are a steely prison
Heaven’s lustre is lost, missing.
Through the angels I have seen that this is a time of living -
Through our dreams I have seen that this is a time of living -
Outside the confinement of the Holocene.
—I have dreamt of drowning...often. I always seem to wake up out and breath and feel I can taste the salt in my mouth but fear does not play any part in these dreams.
May 1, 2016
May 1, 2016 at 7:20 AM UTC
Perhaps
In a single motion
He fell
Wind in his hair
The sky brightening
His eyes closed
Listening to the music of a faraway land
Slight smile on his face
If only he was sleeping.
Mar 6, 2015
Mar 6, 2015 at 4:39 AM UTC
The threads of my life
Slowing being pulled apart
Unraveling
I do not know how to stop
The damage
Repair the holes
They continue to grow
These holes in my soul
Constant pulling
Unraveling
My clumsy attempts
At patches
Failing over and over
Can anybody help me?
Jan 15, 2015
Jan 15, 2015 at 11:05 PM UTC
I find the time I spend alone in barren lands beholds a wonder all its own
The dip and turn of roads leading to holes
Bringing all the progress to a halt
Exalted madness rules over logic not sought
Chasms grow and here I am rooted to one spot
Becoming one with complacency
Once leading now takes second seat
I see the scene of life so keen through eyes I've been
I am not me
I do not think
I tread the ground with iron feet
Unravelled it seems I've become a string
In a single direction my being can be seen
So many wrong turns and right twists
Each leap leads to the next spread
Snow so thin interrupted with each step
And I trek
Spilling my insides with each stride
I try not to digress but the stress
And the hate
And my chest is raked with pain
I can't go back but forward isn't there to obtain
The air feels thin only teasing the blood in my veins
A thousand stories on my skin, stained
I've begun the process of forgetting my brain
Dec 7, 2014
Dec 7, 2014 at 8:39 AM UTC
you said you'd pull the thread
from my skin till my bones
felt embarrassed by all the attention
well they do
and
just a warning,
you're about to pull
the last thread
that's holding me together.
Oct 27, 2014
Oct 27, 2014 at 12:30 PM UTC
I have been unable to cope at night the past couple of weeks. Unable to do anything that resembles healthy. I am angry and lashing out at everyone I love. The little girl whines and cries; then ****** angry girl lashes out because she cannot take the crying. Then the unfeeling/super independent one screams that she needs NO ONE, and we would all be better off if everyone would just go away! For good!
The torture at night is often unbearable. The little girl cries because it hurts so bad, physically hurts, and it is agonizing and beyond painful. And the terror is real to her and is happening all over again. The apprehension of waiting in the dark, alone and scared...part of her praying he will not come and another part of her wishing he would just hurry up and get it over with so she can go to sleep and escape. Why prolong the inevitable. It is going to happen, so just get it over with! Just do it already!
What does that mean?
Does that mean she is bad because she was wishing he would do it?
Does that mean she wanted him to do it?
And now she is crying. We all hear her. She is scared. Get it over with already! Just do it! It is going to happen so just do it now! She will not stop until someone hurts her. Because that is how it has always been. She cannot fall asleep until it is 'over with'.
So ****** angry girl hates everyone because for awhile she felt safe, and the little girl was safe and promises were made that nobody would hurt her anymore. So why is she hurting now? Nobody can keep her safe anymore. And she does let him hurt her. After promises were made and the little girl believed. Nobody keeps their promises.
I try to tell myself it will be okay. I try to rationalize all the different feelings. I try to get all of these girls to work together as a team, rather than the constant fighting and struggling. But I am not currently strong enough.
I am as far from okay as the Earth is from the Sun.
Jul 25, 2014
Jul 25, 2014 at 10:03 PM UTC
you were like my favorite sweater
but
I couldn't help but pull
at all your loose threads
so i could watch you unravel
stitch by stitch
now i'm left wishing that i had learned how to sew
Jun 14, 2014
Jun 14, 2014 at 9:30 PM UTC