Of Grass Widows and Straw Men
November 2025
She's a harlot and a whore. No gentler words to use here... unless I want to sprinkle a pinch of sugar to coat the pain of it all.
She sits there, working her hands through the thread. My pants in her lap. Every so often, she looks up and smirks at me, that gentle smile that stirs and pokes at a well-guarded corner of my fallen heart.
"Don’t look directly into her eyes," I tell myself—
But it’s too late, and she catches my lingering glance.
With a snap, quicker than the flare of a struck match, she pulls me in, and I fall too deeply to recover.
It takes a moment, but I finally pull away.
She scoffs, teasing perhaps... but I’m not in the right mind to navigate that possibility.
I smile inwardly, reminded how she always wins at this game.
My only move is retreat. I turn my gaze toward the pasture, pretending to study the dusk—
Yet through the corner of my eye I watch her hands.
The needle glints, the thread slips.
There’s a sharp dexterity in every motion. She keeps that skill honed, as she does her words.
Even in the silence between us, her quiet speaks louder than any quarrel.
Her craft as a seamstress is second only to her control over me.
And yet, each stitch feels like a thread in a lie.
Still, I cannot bring myself to speak.
But this time, a net draws tight around her shadow.
Home only two days now, and I know something’s amiss.
I don’t yet see the full tapestry of her deceit, but the fragments I hold suffice.
I will discover what I can, before I finally decide to strike.
The needle flashes in the lamplight, each stitch a silent denial.
She tugs the thread of another deceit, then looks up at me again.
I do not retreat this time. I do not waver.
The pause in her eyes is striking; it breaks what remains of my heart.
She knows I’m standing my ground.
A blush rises to her cheek, rushing her back to her task.
I have won, at last; at that small, foolish game.
But at the cost of everything I ever put into her.
Everything I ever put into us.
Her needle moves again. Steady, worried, exact-
A hidden blade that severs the final filament of light.
And something inside me finally goes dark.
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