Untethered

Grandad no longer has a physical form

Shapeless, 3 years after Grandma

I felt/feel an alarming untethering

Leaving only tactile

Blocks of negative space

My grandma knitted

And crocheted

And beaded

And weaved

Her wrinkled hands

Leaving various items behind

As she felt through texture and threads and fibres -

Grandad felt through chord progressions

Riffs remembered, learnt, forgotten, learnt again

He gave that to me

A language

Easier

Then words

A respite

Somewhere to put the crunchy, sticky pain, hilarity and absurdity

Without making a mess

I wish they could see Versions Of Me

They met the draft

Or the prequel

Guessed some things that lay underneath

Unsurprised when I started dating women

Likely confused with my gender presentation

But ultimately soft and fairly unfazed

And what is gender to a mind unravelling?

What is fashion/style to someone that has forgotten whether pants or underwear goes on first?

Nothing nothing nothing

When the untethering was almost done there were only

hands

And hugs

A last/lasting bid for connection

I hope he was ready

I don’t think I was

I don’t think I could ever be

How can you?

When he opened me up to my preferred way of creating

Of Connecting