It looks innocent enough, nothing hostile about tying little knots in string. They don’t mean anything. “What nice colors,” they say as they pass. They only pay the knots mind, they always look away from the tie-er.

The colors mean different things. People don’t think about that. It’s funny, really; it’s other people, and how they treat me, that really decide my colors. I just have to make the proper connections.

See this one I’m working on now? It’s some green, that’s for the discord in my life; there’s a little bit of orange in there, for all the lies. There’s a lot of red in my work. That’s for pain.

Each knot is each transgression. I’ve felt a lot of pain.

There’s always a single bit of white in my work. That’s me, hopelessly tied into all this by all them.

I’m done with all them. They’ve tangled up my life enough; it’s time for a master to take over the strings.

I’ve saved up some white and red string, and plenty of black. That’ll be a slow one.

Each knot will be each one who pays for my pain.