#except that one

Counting Thread

Time was, the moments before sleep were my most productive. Characters would surge out of the darkness, fully formed, and I could commit them to memory before they faded back into imagination. Puzzles would be solved. Problems would find their solutions.

Now it’s just rope. As my mind unwinds, the rope starts to fold in on itself, constructions folding around phantom limbs. They’re disembodied, attached to no one specific, but they bind them all the same. Knots forming around previously wound rope, finding the right pattern that will satisfy both my urge to tease and torture, while remaining proper bondage, depriving movement, restraining, controlling.

I imagine cruel bindings that cross the rope between the legs, force a little friction before wrapping back around wrists, so that every movement is like a butterfly effect; the slightest variation here, and the effects felt elsewhere would be dramatic. I think of how to wrap the rope around itself, form a solid ball, before slipping it between anonymous lips. Hearing the muffled, plaintive, satisfied moans. 

Think about how to make the rope stronger, more complex, more intricate. How to make it beautiful, as well as restrictive. To move from function to form, and extol both at once. I dream of rope, before I’m even asleep.