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Picking at threads


(Image courtesy of Elinor Rowlands)

Will you hold me close

And whisper comfort in my ear?

I don’t want things to be difficult.

Simplicity sits somewhere in those arms I know

So will you draw me into them

Let me shelter there for a while

Sometimes it seems that when I open my mouth

All the worry stacked precariously in my brain tangles out through my tongue

And drops there in piles of words that don’t make any sense

Not in their delivery or timing

Only in their agitation and their ability to catalyse trouble

But digesting the trauma displayed senselessly before you

In these extravagant outbursts of self sabotage

How you sit there so sure and steady and set apart

Unpicking the reason behind these messy states

I worry that I will never know

How to be so measured and calm, unwavering or know

Your certainty that we are not perfect but that is okay

I don’t want things to be difficult

I’m just so used to struggling sometimes I force extra trouble upon myself

Habitually unravelling picking at threads that were neatly sewn

Just in case they come undone

Because at least then I am in control of when it happens

Ready or not, More often not.

And I wait for you to grow tired of it

The double-edged sword of it being early days

I tell myself to relax but I’m not sure I remember how

So for now I will keep breathing if I can

And convince myself to try and be quiet inside

To have confidence and patience because

Simplicity sits somewhere in those arms I know

So will you draw me into them

Let me shelter there for a while

And wait for worry to waste away

As I try to neglect it for a change so that my feet can keep moving me forward

Instead of rooting themselves in the problems of the past.

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