The Loom

On the tension required to hold one another

The Loom

We are not formed as fabric.
We enter as thread,
distinct, unfinished,
carrying tension from elsewhere,
fibers marked by hands we remember
and those we try to forget.

Some of us come frayed at the edges,
ends loosened by distance,
by words pulled too tight,
by silence worn thin.

Still,
we are placed beside one another,
drawn into nearness we did not choose,
held within a pattern we cannot yet read,
felt first as pressure
against what we once carried alone.

The loom does not negotiate.
It gathers.
It steadies each thread in position,
giving form
to what would otherwise fall apart.

We cross.
Again, and again.

Over, under,
a sustained insistence of contact,
each meeting brief,
each contact necessary,
until something begins to take hold
where there was only separation.

Every thread carries
what the others become.

We begin to register the others,
their strain,
their weight,
points of resistance,
points of release.

Gradually,
almost beyond notice,
we change,
carried beyond our own edges,
drawn further than we were alone.

Tension becomes signal,
a way of knowing
how much another can hold,
how much must be carried together.

Too loose,
and we disperse,
a field of fragments
that never settles.

Too tight,
and we cut into one another,
pressure turning sharp,
until something gives way
and the pattern tears.

So we learn
the measure of pressure,
the restraint of force,
the sustained work of remaining
when departure would cost less
in the immediate moment.

Threads break.
We register the absence,
a gap that widens
when it is left unattended.

Some threads hold
because they must.

Some remain
because they no longer know
how to leave.

Still,
the weave continues.

Loss is carried forward,
drawn into what remains,
its absence shaping the pattern
as surely as any presence.

This is how something holds.

Through continuation.

Through threads that refuse
to sever at every strain,
that choose, repeatedly,
to cross,
to meet,
to remain within reach
of what extends beyond themselves.

Peace is made here,
in the tension we agree to hold,
in the crossings we sustain.

But agreement is not always chosen.

And still,
the pattern forms.

Together, humanity gathers into a tapestry, each thread marked, each fracture held, woven from what breaks, and still capable of beauty.

© Monica A Leyva | Layers of Shimmer

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