Unravel: A Poem + Prompt
- May 28
- 1 min read
From a prompt in a writing class with Adam Dalva.Thank you.
Unravel
Like fracture and fray
Like disengage or disentangle
To separate the threads
To cause something to come apart
as if by separation
But there is meaning beyond
what is contained in batch updates
to an online dictionary
One sewn in mind and sinew
A label that points
to a kind of madness
An unspooling
I am mad
Don’t you see
uneasiness, unworthiness
come so easily in this system
It’s unnatural. This state of striving
Our bodies on constant
high alert. A false safety offered
in the form of rules
standards, expectations
definitions.
A constant striving
to do
to meet its demands
to produce
Like a battery hen
Even the words of other women
shame us for not being enough.
Not wife enough
Not mother enough
Not man enough
Enough.
I don’t want to keep it all together
Keep quiet, keep watch, keep time.
in this patriarchal woolshed.
Discard the tightly wound bobbin.
Enough.
Let the unravelling begin.
Prompt: Select a word. First write something factual about it. Then see where it goes…
