is the embroidery my kid made me
when they were twelve. They were learning
that suicide was a family habit, that death
was a silhouette hanging around them,
and I—the dark shadow.
So many years, my kid drew wolves
with red fangs, every girl had a blade
in her side. That year a boy hung himself
while home on detention; he had also been
a bully, which is another way to say
—he hurt in ways we didn’t understand.
A middle school theater kid unable to
hold on when we needed him to.
In our home, everyone’s feelings hung
like pieces of thread, miniature nooses
throughout our living room. I began
to understand how flowers could weave
themselves into fabric—how bloom
and pain might coexist.
When I wanted to smile again, I was gifted
sadness in embroidery thread—flowers
and death—because neither of us
could hold darkness much longer.
The single ache our family had bloomed:
blossoms no one should ever have to hold.
