Yarn

When I first saw the yarn I thought it was safe.

It was the color of blue jeans after a long summer’s use.

I never wore jeans.

The way it slipped through my fingers reminded me of childhood things:

A stuffed animal, a blanket, the sweater my mother made me wear.

The trouble with relaxation is that the more you strive for it the farther you are from it;

Like swimming against the tide.

A simple pattern I thought,

A simple pattern will be best, a scarf.

But simplicity can be deceptive.

The simplest of flowers, when torn from petal to petal, prove hopelessly complex.

So it is with needlework.

My hands are small and insufficient.

I grasp one needle in my right, twisting and poking the yarn violently,

But my lazy left hand refuses to support the other metal needle,

So it is jabbing awkwardly into my stomach

With the pointed end projecting toward the empty room.

I sat that way for hour after hour, struggling against the yarn,

And it began to change.

The downy, optimistic roll of inviting blue became a sinister web,

And even as I spun it I felt a terror at its making.

But I couldn’t stop.

The monstrous thing at my fingertips looked nothing like the picture on the pattern,

Instead it twisted and looped in a perverse tangle of confusion.

Stitches had been dropped along the way,

Others added where they weren’t meant to be, and some were simply done wrong.

The scarf was treacherous,

Instead of a straight edge it dipped and peaked along the edges,

Like the chart that monitors a bad heart.

I hated it.

But I was well taught, and knew I must finish what I began.

So I kept knitting into the night.

When they found me in the morning I was still in my armchair

With the abominable scarf wrapped tightly around my neck,

Skin as cold as ice.

The neighbors gathered to see what had happened,

And one by one they mumbled in awe at how I was strangled

With the most beautiful scarf they had ever seen.

 

 

Reviews

[Dante Balsote]

Nice needlework!

[marisa starkilicious]

This is just...amazing. The end gave me shivers. But for some reason, they were only in my right leg... Anyway, from the beginning, I couldn't expect where this was going to head. And in my mind, I'm still thinking it might be a metaphor for something. But I like to take it literally/

The ending was just too amazing. And this is just so eerie, like a horror story. But I could never imagine a scard as being evil before this. Proved. Horribly. Wrong.

[deeps]

This is cute and very well written. I like this write it shows creativity,
Very well done!

[sammyj]

I like it

[eversosweetly]

This is funny. The more I think about it, the funnier it gets, because the construction of the poem is very much like the construction of the scarf it describes. The poem starts out much like the scarf, haphazardly going every which way with the rhythm and rhyme:
"instead of a straight edge it dipped and peaked along the edges, Like the chart that monitors a bad heart."
About halfway through the poem, I was a little confused about where you were going with this one. Then it was stitched up nicely at the end and it all made sense. May all your reviewers mumble in awe one by one that this is the most beautiful poem they've ever seen. :D

[Greg Skura]

Well Molly you seem to be able to spin a yarn with a twist! Well Done! I love this poem and what a great twist!

[silver threaded queen]

epic