Part 1:  

i pulled at the threads 

hanging off the tapestry of my life –  

the ones i was told never to touch. 

it unraveled so easily 
that i just kept pulling, 

mesmerized by the loosening  
of what i once thought ironclad. 

stitch 

by stitch 

by stitch, 

everything  

came  

apart. 

i imagined 

that undoing  

an entire existence 

would have been more difficult.  

// 

the blank and mutilated tapestry looms,  
the needle in my own hand  
for the very first time. 

i traded all i held precious  
for this power to pierce,  
rather than to be pierced  
by the hand of another,  

with what was never mine. 

the threads i pulled lay formless,  

surrounding me on all sides –  

too many strands to track. 

where does one end, 

the other begin? 

// 

i don’t know how to sew, 

i don’t even know how to thread this needle,  

i stab my fingers each time i start.  

i keep stitching and unraveling 
both the threads and who i am.  

slowly i learn: 

some stitches hold  

strong and steady; 

others  

knot, tangle,  

and fray.  

this work keeps teaching me: 

that which  

holds together, 

also unravels.  

both, always. 

//  

i keep sewing 

memories,  

connections, 

survival – each woven together 

like strand into feeling. 

all that cannot be held  

sewn into a tangible remembering –  an archive of evidence  

everything that brought me  

to here, now.