Stitching in Dear love

Dear love,

We made a game together about quilting. We even put it in a book and published it, at your urging. You took my foundations of knowledge and shoved them into a game and said “let’s make this for everyone.” You took a sex game we played and put it on paper and showed the world. You wanted your name attached to mine, let’s not lie about it. I was one of your shields.

And I see how you gather shield maidens to you pretty consistently. They won’t always look away from you, boy. One day they’ll turn their knowing eyes and see you for the sad excuses that live in your skin and stain your tongue. One day, they’ll meet my eyes and give me the look that means they know.

Regardless. That quilt? I want to talk about that quilt, babe. Because in part, you made so much of public with that game. In retrospect, I see how it was you clinging to us. To the beauty that could come out of us.

More importantly, now, I can see the pieces of my life hidden in drawers, slotted inside books, and scattered under the bed where you shoved them. The people I used to know, used to call friends, used to speak to. The people who you drove me away from. Told me lies about, fabricated tall tales, and promised their hate.

Another way you fed me poison. How long will this list get, do you think?

I have found some thread hidden in an old drawer behind some bric-a-brac and I am delighted to report a needle was tucked inside a flower pot. Now I’m stitching day and night to put the quilt of my heart back together. I have taken your stitch rippers and I have tossed them into the sea where you live.

My fingers bleed, love. There is no thimble to be found. Blood stains the white thread and the edges of the patches. Still I sew. Still I thread. Still I knot. I will be whole again. I will have loved ones and friends and family again.

I will never have you again.

Blood and stains,
The Quilter