The art of crocheting

My grandmother taught herself to crochet in an old barn somehwere in the Midwest with a bent nail.

I watched her cut plastic bags into strips.

Scissors sliding across the bags like silk as she spun sweet stories of a lost love taken by the war.

Now that I am older, I crochet when I get anxious.

I can feel this deep bruised hole in my chest.

As if my shaky fingers can move quick enough it will stop the darkness from spreading through my veins like a cancer.

Pain cuts through my nerves with every stitch and knot.

No one ever taught me how to quiet this suffering.

I just move as quickly as my fingers will allow.

Each piece I complete and shyly present holds my grief, heartbreak and loneliness.

They can’t see the dried tears that soaked the yarn like an icy winter rain.

I think of my mother who couldn’t read or write but created beautiful pieces from a simple ball of string.

Each knot holding a piece of her own darkness.

I think back to the hundreds of carpets that laid upon my grandmothers floor like autumn leaves in a dark wood and I whisper into the air “what did the world do to you?”

I wish she lived long enough to tell me.

I wish she lived long enough to show me how to make the suffering stop.