spine of the soul

Hours
like little red threads
of freedom
had been stolen from me,
pulled, taken, slid out subtly, slowly
from underneath my skin.
I let them.
I believed them because
I did not yet understand what I had, the patterns,
the texture of the wisdom born inside of me,
generations of the rough and the mild,
the way they must press against each other,
dissimilar grains of similar sand.
I did not yet understand that to write is to grow
the spine of the soul
as it was meant to grow
in all directions
upward, like an ever widening intricate tree,
the wild, tangled reach of expression,
toward the sky
with countless
arms, branches, throats.
To write is to discover the peace and brutality, the light and
darkness of who we are,
to begin to weave those little threads into what might have been;
into what may be yet to come.
Stitching: word into word, self into self, we to ourselves,
we
to each other,
lush impossible patterns.
Writing recovers those stolen hours.
The pen hands the freedom
back to me.

.

.

.

.