I stitch my dress back together with the same floss the doctor used to fasten the skin
of my knees in onto itself— both torn the same day I was gifted a fist-shaped bruise
crossed around my wrist but I don’t think about the dull ache in my dominant
hand when the tips of my fingers are twirling the thread in and out and in
and out and in and around knotting the polyester thread together
like rosary beads in stained glass patchwork just until
you can’t see from a few steps away, not unless
you were looking, not unless
you knew what you
were looking
for
in and out
and in and out and in
and not thinking about purple
blooms on my bones and around and out
and not thinking about pricked bloody fingertips held in prayer
out and in and not until you can’t see the tears pulled together under colored laces
not unless you know and in and out like a hymn
in and out like breathing in and out
and I don’t stop when
the dress is
fixed
I don’t stop
until lace and velvet
scraps build a lavender cathedral
and from my fingers I've brought something
new to life; slate wiped clean with fresh floral hems
to hang over my scraped scarred knees I don’t need to think
about anything other than the way it hugs my hips like a seatbelt when
I sit at my vanity, an alter boy asking forgiveness from newly spiked shoulder pads
I have to redo my eyeliner no less than three times but it’s worth it because it matches
my dress and no one else needs to know where the scars and tears and tears are and
if I have ever worshiped a god it was the one staring back from the mirror when I am done
