New (old) poem of mine. This I found in an unpublished set of posts that I wrote mid-2017. I like it, hope you do too.
The Tear
I gave you a piece of fabric
that you said was beautiful.
It wasn’t perfect, but that didn’t matter.
You aimed to make it your dress.
When you first noticed the tear,
you didn’t seem to mind it.
A snagged seam, no more.
You could forget it.
You may’ve tried, but on occassion
you’d remember. You’d pick at it.
You’d check to see if it was worse
than you remembered.
Sometimes, I’d think you had. Forgotten,
I mean. I did. Perhaps that was the problem.
For you’d always find it in the end,
and it made you watchful
for other, lesser tears.
Until you saw tears
that did not exist. Not yet
at least, you’d say.
Every pick and jagged corner
became looming disaster.
Until at last, one day, you swore
it had unraveled beyond repair.
I took it back,
half-made and world-worn.
Believed that if you didn’t want it,
no one would.
I thought to make it a shrine.
To burn it. Was tempted still to fix it,
best I could. Meant to beg
you to take it back.
I did none of those things. Found
that I couldn’t unmake what you’d done,
though I tried, I could only use what I had
to make something new.
And so I did. Until the fabric was its own,
beautiful, not for you, but for me.
the tear not hidden,
but embraced.
