We are tied with invisible thread,
each stitch a memory, some loose, some tight,
some threatening to unravel at the slightest tug.
Mother, with her porcelain hands and iron will,
sewing us into the family quilt, not caring
if the needle pricked and we bled.
I've seen how we gather like moths
around the dinner table's holy light,
pretending the burns on our wings aren't real.
We pass potatoes and grievances with equal ease,
saying grace over the bones of old arguments
that refuse to stay buried.
My sister, that mirror I cannot break,
wears her childhood like a locket around her neck,
while I've swallowed mine whole, a stone in my gut.
Father is the clock on the wall, always watching,
always ticking toward some inevitable hour
when we'll be forced to reckon with his silence.
At night, our house breathes like a beast,
exhaling secrets through the vents and cracks.
I've pressed my ear to its thinning walls,
heard the whispered confessions of pipes,
the absolution of water running down drains,
carrying away what we cannot bear to keep.
This is how we love, imperfectly,
like broken vessels still trying to hold water,
leaking and refilling, leaking again.
Our hands reach across chasms we ourselves created,
our fingers entwined like roots of ancient trees,
drawing nourishment from the same scarred earth.
We are a country with contested borders,
each birthday and funeral a treaty signing,
each holiday a temporary cease-fire.
We plant our flags in the soft soil of each other's failures,
claim territory in whispers at kitchen sinks,
surrender in unexpected embraces at doorways.
I have tried to swim away from this blood tide,
to wash my skin clean of our shared history.
But family is the ink beneath the tattoo,
the blueprint behind the house,
the dream that wakes you, gasping,
only to find it's followed you into daylight.
When we die, they will fold our hands
across our chests, these same hands
that held and hurt and tried, how they tried.
And the thread that binds us will neither break nor burn,
but continue its patient work, stitching us
into the endless tapestry of those who came before,
those who will come after, carrying our blood,
our stories, our stubborn, imperfect love.
