Julie Derraik | You Can’t Make Yarn Out of Steel Wool | Free Verse

out of

you can’tmake Julie Derraik

yarn

that heavy mass of steel wool— scraping against your ribcage walls flammable and full with prickly trauma and wavering faith

I wish to ravel it.

to hand-card it until the harshest fibers of your being stretch into separate strands: family dinners served with f-slurs. Dad leaving you behind a casino at nine. Islamophobic bullets piercing the kitchen backsplash.

and there’s more I don’t know, but I hear them scratch every time your throat catches— silver hairballs and strain.

I wish to turn it beautiful.

to weave that weathered roving through this papery spinning wheel and write sparkling words, weave healing rhythms and make yarn as poetic as the fighter’s look in your dark-roast eyes.

to thread graying food stamps and failing grades with the most colorful lines until I’ve spun enough yarn for a stunning shield—

but that is precisely the issue.

your hurt will never be beautiful— always gray, knotted, barbed, always textured.

your trauma is not romantic. I cannot twirl it in my words and simply spin it away.