strand

They stretch across places I go late at night: doorways, fences to trees, the darkness; I feel them, the strands, clutching at my skin, they are small and dainty and strong. I feel like Goliath in their wake. I feel bad for ruining what might have been. I wonder how long it took that spider to swing out and connect that long line of web, which clings to the hairs on my arms and falls at my feet.

In my bathroom I have noticed a bunch of them, clusters of dusty webs that have pinpoints of black in their centers, but I don't sweep them away. He tells me to, but I argue, and they remain. A week later they are doing the suspected and hoped for job of catching other bugs, what look like ants with wings. A week later they are empty.

His arms, his bed, his smells and I am stuck there again, so easily, what feels at the time so permanently, until some time goes by and I am pushed out of his web.

Obligations pass with a sense of relief, I am not attached to anything that does not bring me joy, and so I will step away without destroying myself in the process of trying to become free. the jobs, the people, the things I must do, the world.

The connections I have made sometimes surprise me. When they are broken it is a choice to begin again or try a different way. It is interesting what I will give my attention to and what I will work on the most.

The spiders in my bedroom prance around my papers looking for mites, and I love that they have found me.