TATTERED

I can no longer see the brilliant blue of long gone years.

Tattered, torn and frayed in threads that dangle from past to present, forever, never again to be woven into the fabric of my life.  The hang, some softly waving in the worm wash of memories, some waving violently touched by the evil that touched me others still and lifeless, waiting.  Some pulse with electricity and light the sky, others hang like a noose limp and dead. Some dancing with the joy and music of their time! Some taught with expectation and desire searching for connection and others waving with hope or singed with the intense heat of lust, love hurt and regret.

The longer strands weave themselves twisted and tangled across the black abyss that is my life.

Those jeans the symbol of rebellion and youth, the colors long faded to grey with no trace of the vibrant blue that once was. The stiff fabric weakened with the passage of time, softened and silky making way for small tears at first! Every strand holds a memory faded with time and lost. Everyone I every touched and the few that ever got to really touch me. Stained with the salt of a million tears!

I cannot keep my hands away but the more I touch the more fragile the fabric becomes!

I run my fingers across the broken threads pull at time and try in desperation to piece them back together. As I pick the hole ever expanding some threads barely able to hold on. Yet I hold on to them those faded tattered jeans that once fit me like a glove protecting me, forever trying to wiggle myself into the past. The need and desire to be enveloped in my own history.

The sand of time still in the pockets the edges now soft and warm. Those pockets dark and deep held all the secrets I had stored in them. The small holes in the bottom where many things found were lost.

The cuffs jagged and torn with a million steps taken to nowhere!

The zipper and button hard to open at first stiff and new.  Tight but with just enough give to allow the hand of a lover to slip between the fabric and my skin searching and frantic! My hips arching to feel that touch.  Those jeans slipping from my body leaving me naked and exposed.

Places soft wet and sticky with loves remembered and loves lost. Never washing those jeans for fear the scent of you would disappear forever. The telltale bloodstains of a young woman reminding me that I was alive and life was full of possibilities.

Hands deep in the back pockets, pulling me closer until our bodies touched soft and sweet, the smell of your breath and the touch of your lips searching for an opening. Fingers hooked in the belt loops as we walked thru life.

Fragile now the fabric, disintegrating in my hands, the small pieces falling and lost. I put my fingers in the void but soon there will be nothing left. I can no longer see the color.