Threads

One thing I miss about college is the creative writing classes I would take. I miss sitting in a circle, passing around copies of my new poem, reading the poetry written by my classmates, being challenged on what a poem is. I miss the critique, the praise, the shameless bashing, all of it. I wondered, as I graduated, if my growth as a writer would slow now that I don't have such an audience for my work, an audience that will tell me their exact opinion, softened or not.

Threads

Silence splits your ears
pulls at tiny molecules
oxygen in the buff
spins it, wraps it, contorts it
like it owns the air between me and you

And I never knew you liked words so much
the way they see you, into you, around you
thread you inside out
the way they sew the rips and tears that
rend bitter-silence air

But even more
connecting me to the best part of you
that wants to love, to take words
wave them into spring trees
blossoming from cracked earth

And you rain cold words on me
that sizzle hot on my skin
make me run for shelter, the cave, the hole in the ground
I bury myself in the dirt, but there is never enough
Until you reel me out on your fishing line

strung with sunlight to blind darkness to submission