Artisan
Artisan of life, she breaks out her loom and yarn. Memory weaver. -Katherine Gotthardt
She did not know to engage in such things would leave everything familiar flailing, everything worthy slapping itself against stucco walls and memories. How could she have? Rooms like these stitch their own lips shut, hold their beaten secrets close, squeeze bits of breath and laughable hope into air packed tight with pain. No, this …
Every second, you give up a little more, stare at the space between us, mumble one-word answers, refuse your favorite sandwich. I understand. It’s part of the sickness, part of what stitches our suffering together. No pill or doctor can cure us. So I sit with you as you empty the last bits of yourself …
I don’t know what you think of white, but tonight, I see azalea petals outdoing the dark, and I think, you know, I’d love to have a clothesline. Yes. I’d love to amble between shirts and sheets, get caught up in the touch of everything clean. I’d love to play Goddess, wrap myself in white, …
I’m in awe of chaos and how easily it erupts, how fragile the audience of everything: one wrong word an unexpected May wind, unseasonal cold front, and the world falls to petals. Or maybe it’s more like the button push, gif or emoji from someone who’s had a bad day, the discord of sticking a …
You’ve come to grips with it: no one’s in the audience. Every day, you hear yourself, reverberating in the mic, saying the same things in different ways, repeating your truths like mantras, your words like they came from the mountain. You must be doing something wrong, though. Nothing is happening. Nothing is changing. Nothing nods …
Open your notebook. Log the times you think you failed. Read it to the wind. -Katherine Gotthardt