How Long Things Can Hold

I found it wrapped around the wheel like it had

grown there, like my hands had tied it in a moment

I've already forgotten. It was from last summer,

maybe longer—faded red, the color of old blood

dried to rust. When I reached for it,

the rubber cracked. Not bent. Cracked,

like something fundamental had changed

in its ability to be anything but brittle.

The pieces fell into my palm. One stayed

wrapped around my wrist, pressed a mark

the color of shame into my skin. I kept

staring at it, at the thin line it left,

at how quickly something can lose

the capacity to hold. The rubber had been

doing its job for months—holding the wheel,

keeping something in place—and then,

the moment I asked it to be flexible again,

the moment I asked it to give,

it just came apart.

I swept the pieces into the trash.

The mark on my wrist is still there,

fading slower than I'd like. It's a thin line,

nothing serious, but it stays long enough

to remind me. How long can you ask something

to hold before it breaks? How many seasons

before the grip loosens into nothing?

The wheel is just a wheel now,

without the rubber keeping it close.

I've tied nothing new around it.

I don't know if I trust anything

to stay bound anymore.