Words by Will Hunt
The first line of this poem is from Gabriela Mistral’s ‘The Teller of Tales’.
In cocoons of silken thread
I live, held entranced
by some impervious thing.
Waiting for a crack to steep through,
unfold my wings and stretch—
to feel the joyful ache of release
to feel the simple vitality
of movement.
To stretch—even in those micro-tears,
that rushing blood.
Instead, the cocoon constricts,
the world a convoluted blur
of white-lined mass
of slithers of light.
On the inside, dark.
A heavy heart. Beating.
Not to the body, but to the head.
Flushing it with bloody thoughts
that pound against the cranium:
That rattle and scream.
My wings have not moved in a long time.
Maybe if I tried to,
they would break off at the joint,
like a rusted cog
snapping from its machine.
It’s stale in here.
It’s just thoughts.
Too many.
Compounded.
A dam ready to overflow.
Weight. Heavy.
In this dreadful cocoon
of silken thread.
