A Wigwam for a Goose's Bridle

Raw and alive, this tapestry accepts me
as if it has waited the entirety of known history
(and possibly more) for me to cast myself upon it.
This is not the gentle accommodation of soft clouds
moving to fit and cradle. My leap of faith lands
not on stone nor threads but on feeling,
and the force of every chorus swells at once
as the rhythm roars with every heartbeat
I’ve ever offered another. The filaments shimmer,
strummed by hands unseen: this is my melody,
my longing, my words unspoken. They remember
me - I
               am crushed by a tsunami of everything I have felt,
the hurts and sorrows and griefs crashing down on me
alongside joys, drowning them out. I remember
the warmth of stage lights on my cheeks, little beads
of sweat coalesce beneath foundation. I remember
hands: every touch an invisible tattoo upon my skin and my soul,
now burning as each clamours to be recognised and remembered.
This fabric is stained by the tears I thought only my pillow witnessed;
shed in lament that I lived to listen to all their stories and yet none
would listen to mine, splattered like ink on parchment
as my heart bled yet again as I try to come to terms
with the paradox that I am: both too much and not enough, all at once.
I remember his tears,
silent salty sobs,
rivulets I could not dam.
His sobbing harmonises with mine - the nights I sang myself to sleep,
collecting pieces of fractured hope that had to hold on
to the idea that I might be relevant,
somewhere
to someone.
Unbearable truths.
It dawns on me now in this twilight.
I would die to save him.
This is no pretty rhetoric dripping from intoxicated lips
of young lovers who know nothing of what they speak,
steeped in hyperbole and filtered through rosy glass.
This is raw, unbearable truth.
Claws grasp at threads, seeking purchase,
but the ripples of memory have no substance with which to anchor myself.
Afloat on the weave, or drowning? I gasp as breath is captured
by notes of my song and I reaffirm that I will not stop singing
even though the music has silenced.

Co-written with Ashka Vrenn