ties raze somewhere i still have every silk tongue anyone ever gave me, from solid colours to patterns intricate and kaleidoscopic. the one i think about the most has charlie brown's beagle tattooed on its face. my mother got it for me when i was ten or twelve or something like that. the tag on the wrapping paper said it was from a bearded man i already knew wasn't real. the handwriting was hers. "even santa knows your cool," she wrote. my brain penciled in an e and an apostrophe to fix her fucked_up grammar. it was one of the only times i can remember feeling something like tenderness toward her. i thought i was too young to know something she didn't. i wanted her to be strong and wise and resolute. but she was never any of those things. not even when she showed up in my dreams. 231225 what's it to you? who go blather from