“Why is your hair falling out, Mama?” It’s difficult to explain to you that the medicine that is healing me is also unravelling me.

CLOTH: 1. threads woven together into fabric made from wool, cotton, or a similar fibre. 2. a small piece of material, used in cleaning to remove dirt, dust, or liquid. 3. a covering and protector of what is vulnerable to threat. 4. a material made into a form to be worn on the body, a symbol for gender roles and identity.

“Why is your hair falling out, Mama?” It’s difficult to explain to you that the medicine that is healing me is also unravelling me.

CLOTH: 1. threads woven together into fabric made from wool, cotton, or a similar fibre. 2. a small piece of material, used in cleaning to remove dirt, dust, or liquid. 3. a covering and protector of what is vulnerable to threat. 4. a material made into a form to be worn on the body, a symbol for gender roles and identity.

I am threadbare. I am the thread bearer. I am threadbare. I am the thread bearer. I am threadbare. I am the thread bearer.

I tell my body: I am here.

You wanted to hear the story of what happened to me over and over again, waiting for the truth of it to metabolize in your body, in mine.

You wanted to hear the story of what happened to me over and over again, waiting for the truth of it to metabolize in your body, in mine.

I am because of you.
You are because of me.
If I disappear, you do too.

I am because of you.
You are because of me.
If I disappear, you do too.

At the end of my cancer treatment I made three white dresses.
A dress for the child I was, the child you are, the child yet to come.
A dress for the mother you make me and for my mother that made me.
A dress for my healing body, to remember the shape of the hospital gowns that opened at the front where my softness was restored.
The fabric of my becoming and yours.
At the end of my cancer treatment I made three white dresses. A dress for the child I was, the child you are, the child yet to come. A dress for the mother you make me and for my mother that made me. A dress for my healing body, to remember the shape of the hospital gowns that opened at the front where my softness was restored. The fabric of my becoming and yours.

There is a pulse to it all. The let down of my milk, the drip of an IV,
the persistence of my heart beating with a quiet, metronomic strength.

This moment is all there is.
It cradles me like a mother. It meets me like a peer. It loves me like a child.
I wear it like time.

Black rocks and soft skin. Question the hardness, there is a reason for it. We are meant to be soft. Skipping across water like wonder. It’s okay, the water can hold the sinking of the stones.

Black rocks and soft skin. Question the hardness, there is a reason for it. We are meant to be soft. Skipping across water like wonder. It’s okay, the water can hold the sinking of the stones.

CONTINUE TO "WATER"
BACK TO "FIRE"