And here's what I wrote while we were waiting for news.
Spiders can make their homes anywhere two pieces of solid are close enough to be web-tied. You’ve moved homes more times than I cared to help you carry the couch but in each one, you mounted the spider identification poster first – usually in the kitchen – and refuse to touch any existing webs. I started looking at spiders differently after I knew you awhile. They stopped scaring me, first, and then, at your insistence, I started laying bottle caps of sugar water wherever I found webs. Spiders bring good luck you say. Feed her like a welcome guest. You’d never let me go hungry, would you?
Wherever you’ve gone, the spiders have followed. They guarded the comings and goings of you and every lover to ever trespass your home. You have always been a weaver. If I watch your hips closely enough, I can see webs where your hips have been, and I have watched too many people walk through them, brush your magic from their faces like what the hell did I walk into?
When I got the call that you’d gotten yourself stuck in a cave while hiking with your family, and the rescue workers were too big to grab you, it didn’t occur to me that you might be scared.
The first summer we spent apart, I trolled the streets without lights, wishing you were there to share the restless night prowl, and in the middle of hopping a fence, your eight-legged self crawled straight over my hand like hey, like I’m never as far away as you think I am.
Three thousand miles away, we who love you collected news stories and secondhand phone lines and strung them to one another, arched a web of questions and reassurances until the tension held us tight. I know you already know that spider silk is stronger than steel. I wondered ig you could feel our web ghostkissing your working forehead like we’re not as far away as you think we are, like hold on. We got each other. You just take care of yourself.
When you told me you were scared, I didn’t believe you. You are more cave than city streets, more pine needles than asphalt, more spider than scaffold, you’ve got backpacking bones, girl, woodpecker tenacity. None of us doubted you. They told me you’d gotten a hammer from the rescue workers and were chipping yourself out, and I laughed. You spider. No matter what, you just keep spinning, keep moving, and I imagine we were all laughing, the way we do when things are going to be okay, when the whiskey we’re drinking turns from worry into toasts.
Wherever you’ve gone, the spiders have followed. They guarded the comings and goings of you and every lover to ever trespass your home. You have always been a weaver. If I watch your hips closely enough, I can see webs where your hips have been, and I have watched too many people walk through them, brush your magic from their faces like what the hell did I walk into?
When I got the call that you’d gotten yourself stuck in a cave while hiking with your family, and the rescue workers were too big to grab you, it didn’t occur to me that you might be scared.
The first summer we spent apart, I trolled the streets without lights, wishing you were there to share the restless night prowl, and in the middle of hopping a fence, your eight-legged self crawled straight over my hand like hey, like I’m never as far away as you think I am.
Three thousand miles away, we who love you collected news stories and secondhand phone lines and strung them to one another, arched a web of questions and reassurances until the tension held us tight. I know you already know that spider silk is stronger than steel. I wondered ig you could feel our web ghostkissing your working forehead like we’re not as far away as you think we are, like hold on. We got each other. You just take care of yourself.
When you told me you were scared, I didn’t believe you. You are more cave than city streets, more pine needles than asphalt, more spider than scaffold, you’ve got backpacking bones, girl, woodpecker tenacity. None of us doubted you. They told me you’d gotten a hammer from the rescue workers and were chipping yourself out, and I laughed. You spider. No matter what, you just keep spinning, keep moving, and I imagine we were all laughing, the way we do when things are going to be okay, when the whiskey we’re drinking turns from worry into toasts.
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