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Moth-Eaten Clothes
Like moth-eaten clothes,
you are scraps of memory.
Non-existent and forgotten
– preserved in my mind
like unwanted fabric.
You were sewn into my childhood
needle-tipped with loose threads.
When you plague my sleep
fabric scratches my stomach,
polyester tightens around my neck.
I feel humiliation
when old jumpers, shirts, and socks
are drawn out of the loft,
as if the times of you
are laced into them.
I have never really seen moth-eaten clothes,
At least – I don’t think I have.
Maybe I threw them away before
they ever had a chance to be eaten
I grew up too fast to know.
Maybe I am the moth
that put the holes in those clothes
– chewed through the elbows,
tore away the toes
eager to forget and hungry to grow.
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