What Doesn't Hold

I threaded the needle with hands that were shaking,

pushed the point through the first hole with care,

and my stitches came out loose, clearly breaking,

nothing like the stitches that hold and repair.

Each pull of the thread made it worse,

the knots bunched up, the gaps grew wide,

like I was writing in some broken verse,

like everything I tried just died.

The sweater still has the hole.

It's just surrounded now by the proof

of every way I lost control,

by all my stitches coming loose.