POETRY / CRAFTS
Stitches of May
response to May 2020 Promposity prompt
The news is not good; 118,283 dead. That’s 118,283 families — 118,283 funerals un-had.
I thread the needle, pressing the floss between thumbnail and skin, into the eye.
The floss moves so smoothly through the linen, a quick smooth “x” and onto the next.
While families grieve, I stitch.
These people are mad at those people, the news reports. Stay in! Stay safe! Stay alive! Those with signs and guns disagree. They gather without masks, angry that they have been told to stay home.
I close my heart to it all, and I stitch. The rhythm, the order, the counting… counting… order, one stitch after another in line after line and my mind eases, releases. I’m thankful I am not a governor, or a mask-wearing healthcare worker on the 12th day in a row of exhaustion. Each smooth stitch. It’s all I can do. The news is not good.
I am staying in, folding floss over linen individual colors that build and become what each tiny stitch could never be alone.
Can we ever go back to the way we were? Should we even try? A country in paralysis.
A country so bent in on itself that it can’t see each tiny stitch builds something, a fabric of color and depth and vibrancy we could never be alone.
118,283 stitches have come undone.
Thank you Promposity for the May prompt of:
Scroll down for pics
Author’s note: Cross stitching, something I have done as a child, has increasingly become an activity that keeps me grounded and at peace when things around me get difficult. Being an empath, the coronavirus shut down, all of the arguing between people, and all of the frustration and fear people are feeling— it takes a toll on my spirit.
Cross stitching gives me a sense of order in a world of chaos.
The featured picture for this post is one from Pixabay, but I thought I’d share a few pictures of some of my own work.
And now I tag three other writers to play along with the May Promposity Writing Challenge:
Jenny Justice, my friend, whose stream-of-consciousness style ranting articles really speak to me. I think May 2020 is giving her plenty to work with. — Keep writing girl. You got this.
Jun Wu, because I haven’t talked to her in forever and I honestly want to know she’s still rocking this single mom / writer’s life thing like no other! — Keep writing girl. You got this.
Michelle Marie Warner, because she and I seem to be having some dual-life parallel universe thing gong on right now — keep writing girl. You got this.
Christina M. Ward is a blogger and poet from North Carolina — where she is staying home and staying healthy. Thanks for reading.
